First of all, let me try and put it this way, when we are justified, we are justified with the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And I sometimes say what that means, if you can begin to take it in, is that when you stand before God, you are able to say: “I am as righteous before you as your Son Jesus Christ.”
So, yes, you can repent on judgment day. Now, that can sound very arrogant, but if you then say well how is that, the answer is because the only righteousness with which I’m justified is Jesus Christ’s righteousness.
So, there’s an absoluteness about the perfection of that righteousness. There is an absoluteness about its completeness and finality. So, we are all equal justified.
The New Testament also teaches that God assesses us as we actually are. And so, for example, Paul says in II Corinthians 5, “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ to receive what is due to us for what we have done in the body.” And a number of New Testament passages that indicate, yes there will be an assessment of our lives.
Paul, for example, looks forward to receiving the crown of righteousness. So, he knows he is justified, but he’s looking forward to receiving the crown of righteousness. And I think one might say that every believer may look forward to the crown of righteousness, but each crown may be differently shaped.
I personally have found the parable that Jesus tells very helpful in this respect. So here are these servants and their master gives them a certain sum of money, and they all do different things with them. And when they come to give account to the master, there is a relationship between the master’s assessment of their lives and the service they rendered him.
But say you’ve been given five minas, and you made five more, then so what’s the assessment. Well, he says “Well how about me making you mayor of ten cities.” That’s the language Jesus uses, putting people in charge of ten cities.
The only relationship between the minas and the cities is the number. That’s I think a little indication you need to connect these two things. But what really strikes me is, that the result of the assessment is out of all proportion to any service the individual renders.
I imagine standing, ourselves standing before the judgment seat of Christ , and the Lord assesses our lives. And you say, “Lord, what did I ever do? I mean I know I did great things for Ligonier, but what did I ever do to deserve this?” And I envision Him, theologically at least, saying, “will you never understand it is all entirely of my grace?”
So, I would say especially to a Christian who, you know we can be very nervous and fearful about that final assessment, that we should always remember that just as our justification is by grace, that assessment will also be by grace.
First sign for judgment day
The first real sign that the End of Days is approaching is seen, we are told, when the terrestrial and celestial worlds begin to be profoundly troubled. Both in the Heavens and on the Earth there will be major disturbances that indicate that a vast change is under way. Wars and rumors of disorder will abound. It is to be a period of trial, especially for those who are committed to aiding the process of cosmic growth, as the forces of those who deny everything but their own will seek to hold back the imminent transformation of the World.
This crisis is precipitated by the fact that the accumulating level of Yezirah and Beriah present in Asiyyah is about to undergo a quantum jump of Teshubah or conversion and redeem the physical World. Such an event is heralded, tradition and revelation says, by the appearance of Elijah who, as the incarnate presence of Enoch, the Agent of the CREATOR, announces the coming of the Messiah or Anointed One.
This event is preluded by the ingathering of all Exiles into Israel; that is, all those who know of the middle column are withdrawn upward from Asiyyah, via the Self, the place of Elijah, into the Malkhut of Beriah, the Kingdom of the Spirit. Then comes the phase of the intaking of those who, on recognising that the End of the World is at hand, leave the functional roles of the side pillars and are gathered in and accepted as proselytes to the Kingdom of Heaven.
The two lower Worlds, having been evacuated of the Remnant of Israel as all seekers of God are called in Kabbalah, then become a battleground for the evil army of Gog and Magog and the forces of the Good. In this great and final war between evolution and mechanical regression, evil is defeated and the Messiah descends from the place of the Archangel Michael, at the Tiferet of Beriah, to the Tiferet of Yezirah to act as the Saviour King for mankind. Thus, in a glimpse of fore image, we are taught concerning the End of Days.
What exactly is End of days in the bible? all the profits gave the prophecies for the end of days. we are already in end of days more than 20 years already. everything they told you is for this world.
God say there are two conditions for messiah. The first one, prior to schedule when you deserve it, the second one, whether you deserve it, whether you don’t deserve it, in the end it must come, but not for everyone.
The beginning of Existence comes into being with the Crown of Crowns, the Azilutic Keter of EHYEH—I AM. Out of the Endless Changeless World of Emanation, Creation emerges at the Tiferet of Azilut which becomes the Keter of Beriah. From this place, the CREATOR generates the impulse of a Shemittah or Great Cosmic Cycle with all its created Worlds and creatures that inhabit them.
The sefirah of the Beriatic Keter is the second Sefirah of the Great vertical line of Light, or Will, that descends down through the central column of all four Worlds from the Keter of I AM to the Malkhut of Asiyyah in the pillow stone of Shetiyah, meaning ‘Founded of God’, at the very foot of Jacob’s Ladder. Here is the Beginning and End of Time.
Changing Time comes into being at the Keter of Beriah. Above is the Abyss that acts as a veil between Creation and the Divine Crown of All that HAS BEEN, IS and WILL BE in existence. With change, the Great Cosmic Cycle begins to descend in a spiral that follows the Lightning Flash which passes from right to left pillars and back again as it brings each World into being.
Running through the midst of this is the unfolding central column which is ever-present at every level of Existence. This is the Eternal Now, the presence of the Unchanging in every World that balances and reconciles the past of the left pillar and the future of the right pillar as Existence continually shifts from potential to actual, or Force to Form, and back again.
When all the Worlds were completed, the cosmic Shemittah turned at the Malkhut at the foot of Jacob’s Ladder and began its retreat from the densest of materiality and complexity of law. This is the evolutionary return and rising of Existence back to its source.
So far in the current cycle the outgoing impulse has been accomplished with the aid of the Shekhinah or Divine Presence exiled, as it is called in Kabbalah, in the most compressed of matter. At the present time the return, if it is to be judged by the general state of mankind, is to be seen somewhere between the central nervous system and the Self, or between the Hod and Tiferet of the Great Line of Light on the central column. This places most of incarnate humanity at the level of the ego with some above and some below.
Judgment day: the Messiah
The position of the Messiah in Kabbalah and in many other esoteric traditions is very precise. He is the perfect human being, the living ideal for all humanity. His initial position on Jacob’s Ladder is at the simultaneous Malkhut of Azilut, the Tiferet of Beriah and the Keter of Yezirah. Here, where the upper three Worlds meet in the Throne of God, he presides over the innermost part of incarnate mankind. Whoever holds this role as the Axis of the Age is the link between the Divine ELOHIM, the Holy Spirits and humanity. The Messiah, it is said, is the true Son of God and not his servant, as all the Archangels are despite their high rank and name of Benai ELOHIM.
This special relationship is because Adam, or man, was God’s firstborn, that is, the being who was of the ELOHIM’S own begetting in the DIVINE’S own likeness.
Thus it is that those of mankind who have not realised that in their Self is God seeing God are given the choice of perceiving the purpose of human existence in the reality of the Messiah, the lastborn spirit to incarnate below.
While, for example, orthodox Christians say the Messiah has come and orthodox Jews say the Messiah is yet to come, the truth of the matter is that the Messiah has been, is and will always be present. It could be no other way, if one knows the place of the Anointed above the Self and at the Crown of all incarnate mankind where humanity meets ADONAI at the Malkhut of Divinity.
The apocalyptic period of the open manifestation of the Messiah to all humanity is said to be temporary, despite the fact that it is a time of great peace. Further, tradition states that, during this phase of harmony, Time itself slows down as the cosmic momentum approaches its Jubilee Sabbath, so that even the planetary bodies in the physical Universe appear to progress more slowly in their orbits as all the Created Worlds and beings in them come into rest and balance.
For a while, perfect justice reigns and even death is banished as all mankind, having been lifted out of Asiyyah and being in direct contact with Beriah, becomes aware of the spiritual Teaching concerning the purpose of Creation. This Grace is given so that no one, not even the wicked, may ignore the possibility of redemption, even in the last Seven Great Days of the Cosmic Shemittah.
On the final Day of Judgement, tradition informs us, all the spiritual records that have been collected by the angelic Watchers of the Worlds are reviewed.
Here, the accumulated result of all the lives of each human being is judged according to the original cast of the particular destiny that was given at the creation of their spirit. Even the dead are resurrected on this Day of Days; that is, those who were confined for aeons to the darkest and lowest Hell of Gehinnom are released from their elemental graves to be brought up before the CREATOR who sits upon the Throne of Heaven at the Keter of Beriah.
From this highest place of created existence, in the midst of the ELOHIM, the Divine Mercy and Severity is given forth upon the Archangels and Angels as well as humans. Then the totality is seen to be a single event that is fused into the common purpose again, before the CREATOR sends some into the outer darkness with its gnashing teeth beyond the order of the Azilutic sefirot and others back into the Olam Ha-Ba, ‘the World to come’ that begins after the Olam Hazeh, ‘This World’, is dissolved.
Those creatures whose work is complete, now free of their destiny, pass beyond the seventh Heaven of Arabot and rise up out of the vast sea of Creation, crying ‘I Am’ as they ascend through the Abyss-Daat of Azilut and into union with the Crown of Crowns, beyond which they individually merge into the knowing and being of God.
Below, at the Tiferet of Azilut, the CREATOR wills another general Shemittah to unfold the new Universe. In this next sefirotic step are the seeds of everything great and small, high and low, that will happen in the following manifestation of Existence which thus proceeds, cosmic cycle by cosmic cycle, towards the Jubilee of Jubilees. In this final and full realisation of everything Called forth, Created, Formed and Made, the Immanence present will directly mirror the Transcendent. Thus, the original of all intentions will be fulfilled when all the Worlds are unified in the image of fully divine Adam, so that there is no separation as God beholds God. In this knowing and being known, we are told, the ABSOLUTE ALL is Realised in the ABSOLUTE NO-THING. Then, EN SOF merges with AYIN and the Mirror. Existence vanishes, leaving God the ONE. ‘God’s place is the World, but the World is not God’s place.’
Judgment day:Upper and Lower Worlds
As we have seen, the reason for the process of human incarnation is that mankind should act as a bridge between the upper and lower Worlds. In this way, the Divine Presence may be realised consciously, even in the lowest depths of physical reality, as mankind raises, for example, the metal and mineral kingdoms into the upper levels of the Asiyyatic Tree and imbues them with an intelligence they would never have experienced while buried and in an unrefined state in the earth.
This is also true of the plant and animal kingdoms whose stock, despite periodic error, is slowly being improved and protected against disease. Thus, the planet is gradually lifted in its state of awareness as mankind husbands its surface and resources.
As regards mankind itself, there are very special circumstances. Because of the gift of free will, the evolutionary process within the returning tide of the Shemittah is not automatic.
People may choose to remain in the general stream of evolution, go ahead of it by individual effort on spiritual work or even go against the cosmic flow and sink below the level of the beasts and plants into a human mineral Hell of psychological crystallisation where they are fixed until Time is finished at the End of Days.
Tradition tells us that humanity is divided, according to the decisions of each individual soul, into three types corresponding to the three pillars. Those who deny that there is a purpose to existence may be said to be of the left-hand pillar where they incur negative debts and live out life after life of severe existence.
Those who go with the gradual growth of evolution are said to be of the right-hand pillar and these people, it is said, live through generation after generation of ever-expanding circumstance. Seen as the Ways of Fear and Love, such side-pillar paths are bound by the functional laws of Force and Form. Thus, while an individual may be good or bad, he is held at that level of existence by his Karma, to use a Hindu term.
In Kabbalah it is called ‘Reward and Punishment until the third and fourth generation’. Thus, a person may live throughout the last part of the cosmic cycle in the incarnation of fate with its confines of pleasure or pain. The escape from this position is via the central pillar of Knowledge and Holiness.
Holiness means to be whole, that is balanced and complete, and this is the goal of those who go by the way of the central column. This Holy or Royal Way, like the other two, is also a matter of choice except that in this case it is deliberate and conscious, as against a general and temperamental inclination towards a good or evil life.
The Way of Knowledge is exactly what it says. It is sought by those who wish to know the true nature of themselves and the purpose of the Universe and to know God face to face. In some cases such knowledge is given in one lifetime but for most it is acquired over many lives that run parallel to the generations of the side columns.
Sometimes there is a loss of the thread and so perhaps a period of several transmigration are spent on the left or the right pillars until the original aim is remembered.
he story of the prodigal son illustrates the phenomenon well, as do many fairy tales that speak of lost miraculous objects or people in captivity or sleep. These stories, treasured over many generations as containing more than just childish fantasy, have been written and scattered throughout the nations of the world by those belonging to the inner House of Humanity who are responsible for helping those who wish to tread the Way of Knowledge.
The esoteric, mesoteric and exoteric levels of spiritually evolved mankind are the result of conscious work by human beings who were first incarnated perhaps very near the beginning of the time when the first Adam and Eve were born into the flesh. Some members of this upper part of the human race may be, as some traditions call them, ‘old souls’—that is, they may have lived many times before on the Earth.
Kabbalists have sometimes referred to them as the 600,000 original souls that were present at Mount Sinai when the Ten Commandments were given. Other traditions see them as members of ancient and lost civilizations who periodically incarnate to teach the latter-day seekers after truth. The fact that most esoteric traditions state that there are people of the higher levels present in both incarnate and discarnate forms indicates that the Kabbalistic concept of the spiritual Maggid or instructor is perfectly valid. More important, from this study’s point of view, is that these members of the House of Israel, or spiritual beings of the World of Beriah, are above the law of Yezirah or Karma; that is, they are no longer subject to the influence of the Earth or the planets, although when they incarnate they pass through a single outward fate which acts as a vehicle for their long-term destiny.
We now have a picture of humanity progressing through Time with the three living generations on the crest of the ever-present moment Now, with the past crystallising behind into Form and the future ever opening into possibility and the potential of Force.
In the midst of this returning Time are those who know the purpose of the whole operation and aid in the Work of Unification. This is done either by being in among the living, who are continually being reborn into situations of their own choosing, or by assisting from above in the discarnate state.
Such an operation may be performed via the vehicle of the Collective Unconscious of humanity at large, or through the direct guidance of individual revelation for a person who wishes to ascend by the central column and so gain realization quickly instead of waiting until the End of Days.
At the present time, the Work of Unification is not only the gathering in from the Great Exile of those who want to enter the Promised Land of the Spirit but the human and cosmic operation of helping Heaven to flow down into the lower Worlds at a particularly crucial period.
This movement is seen behind the two World Wars, the breakdown of the old social and political order, the enormous creativity, population growth, global consciousness, conquest of space and the undoubted new interest in things spiritual among the current generation. All this cosmic movement can go negative or positive because the choice is in the hands of mankind which can aid or mar the balance between the Worlds.
The process of Tikune, or Amendment, is one of the major tasks of evolved people. In this they have to correct, by conscious and directed Will, the oscillations between the Good and Evil of the outer columns which are stimulated by the performance of natural humanity who live in what is called the Katnut, or Lesser State of awareness.
Those in the Gadlut, or Greater State, can perceive, moreover, because of their consciousness of the upper Worlds, a slow polarization occurring between evolution and regression as the Cosmic Cycle proceeds on its return.
This recurring situation is described periodically throughout the history of mankind in myth, scripture and revelation. Up to now the tension between Order and Chaos in the macrocosm as well as the microcosm has been resolved in minor crises worked through in Heaven as well as on Earth.
However, as the Shemittah comes towards the close of its great cycle at the Keter of Beriah, when every human soul has been incarnated at least once, the accumulation of all the Good and Evil that ever was and all the affirmation and denial that has been crystallised out of the myriad individual incarnations, begins to come into hard focus as the forces for disintegration openly face those of integration.
In the penultimate stage, at some point in our future, this generates the apocalyptic situation of cosmic disturbance set out in the many books of prophecy about the End of the World.
Normally, it is not given to mankind to see into the future, for two reasons; first, because it would remove the act of free will; and, secondly, because, while the general and cosmic plan is prearranged, the individual details are not. However, occasionally an act of Grace might allow a person to see into his own future, to warn or advise him; and it has occasionally been granted to mankind that the faculty of general prophecy be given.
In this phenomenon, the future of a nation or mankind at large is perceived, so that no one is in doubt as to which side of the predicted events he wishes to choose to be on. The vision of the Biblical prophets, such as Jeremiah, on the fate of ancient Israel and her neighbors, are a classical example.
Prophecy, seen Kabbalistically, is the gift of the Hokhmah of Yezirah, or Inner Intellect. This faculty is quite different from Daat or Knowledge in that, while the prophet may be revealing hidden things, he may not actually know what he is seeing or saying.
Here is the difference between the greater prophets, who knew what they knew, and the lesser who often fell into an unconscious ecstasy when their revelation came forth. In Kabbalah, this loss of awareness is strongly discouraged. One must know what one is about.
Revelations received by knowledge and prophecy may be personal or cosmic. They may also appertain to the local time epoch or to the End of Days.
Much of the early Apocalyptic literature refers to current and near future political events in which recognisably existing temporal empires such as Persia, Greece and Rome fall while the opposed faithful of Israel are preserved. However, some of these symbols should be read in their cosmic context.
Seen this way, the Books of Daniel, Enoch, Baruch, the Sibylline Oracles and the Revelations of St. John repeat a Universal rather than a historic theme concerning the closing stages of this particular cosmic Shemittah.
