The End of the World

Then I saw a throne, immense, white, and the one sitting upon it, from before the face of him flew the earth and the sky, and a place not discovered for them.

Then I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing in the presence of the throne, and books were opened—then another book was opened, that is the life: and so the dead were judged, out of the things that had been written in the books concerning their deeds.

And the sea gave of the dead in it, and death and Hades gave of the dead in them, and they were judged, each concerning their deeds.

And death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of the fire.

And if anyone was not discovered having been written in the book of life, that one was thrown into the lake of fire.

Revelation 20:11-15

Premillennial

Believers have already received Christ’s judgment, and the rewards that come with faith, a thousand years before, at the founding for the Millennial Kingdom. Now, a second judgment is about to commence.

The Great White Throne, first introduced in Revelation 4, had God the Father seated upon it, handing the Lamb the seven-sealed scroll. Now, it may be the Father seated in judgement, or the Son—or perhaps Father and Son are seated together.

The presence of God in this scene is so powerful that the earth and sky flee away and, in fact, disappear. This is the moment Peter was referring to when he described the universe dissolving, literally atom separating from atom.

… the heavens will pass-away with-a-roar, and the elements will be destroyed while burning, and the earth and the works in it will be found.

2 Peter 3:10 (DLNT)

The old creation has been done away with to make room for the new creation to come.

Into this strange liminal void—in between universes—all the dead who had not been raised up in the first resurrection are now presented before God for judgment. The very fact they are here now identifies them as all those who have died in their sins, for believers have already been raised up with Christ to reign with him during the Millennium.

The Book of Life

First, books are opened, presumably containing the names of all human beings. Then, another, single, book is opened: the Book of Life first referenced in Jesus’s message to the church in Sardis. Jesus had earlier told his disciples to rejoice because their names had been written in heaven, and later, the writer of Hebrews also spoke of those whose names would be registered in heaven.

Sadly, all those standing before the Lord now, the dead given up by graves, by the sea, and the domain of death, did not have their names recorded in that one Book of Life. Instead, the many books are now consulted, a long lists of deeds catalogued against each name written there (hence the need for multiple volumes). As each dead mortal is called forward, the judgment is rendered “according to their works.” Some consider this the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy,

For the Lord comes out from his place
    to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity;
the earth will disclose the blood shed on it
    and will no longer cover its slain.

Isaiah 26:21 (NRSVUE)

Death and Hades

John had first written of these two figures in his first cycle of tribulations, the seven seals—

Then I saw, and behold a pale green horse, and the one sitting upon it, name of Death, and Hades was following with him, and authority was given to them over the fourth [or four parts] of the earth to kill in sword and in famine and in [pestilence] and by the wild beasts of the earth.

Revelation 6:7-8

Both death and Hades are seen as demonic powers that had previously wreaked havoc throughout the earth and were now being made to release their captive dead. Like Satan, the dangerous beast, and its false prophet, now death and Hades also are cast into the Lake of Fire, which is now disclosed as The Second Death.

The Book of Life’s gleaming leaves are searched, but alas, the dead, great and small, each scrutinized, is found wanting. None are discovered within the precious book’s pages and so are also cast into the Lake of Fire.

Amillennial

This is the one and only judgment that Jesus predicted would come at the end of time in His message about the separation of sheep from goats in Matthew’s Gospel.

When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory.  All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats

Matthew 25:31-32 (NRSVUE, emphases added)

Paul also spoke of this final time of judgment, writing,

But by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. 

He will repay according to each one’s deeds: 

to those who by patiently doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life, 

while for those who are self-seeking and who obey not the truth but injustice, there will be wrath and fury. There will be affliction and distress for everyone who does evil, both the Jew first and the Greek, 

but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, both the Jew first and the Greek. 

Romans 2:5-10 (NRSVUE, emphases added)

John spoke of the consequences of rejecting Jesus, writing,

The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; on the last day the word that I have spoken will serve as judge

John 12:48 (NRSVUE, emphases added)

The fact that both earth and sky flee from God’s presence is indication the Second Coming has not yet happened, as the glory of Christ would have caused this phenomenon had he returned earlier. Instead, Peter’s letter makes clear that Jesus’s second coming would be accompanied by the end of the created order as it now is. Furthermore, everywhere God’s final judgment is spoken of, it is associated with Christ’s return.

Judged by Works

The presence of the Books of Deeds and the Book of Life also indicate all the dead of humanity have come before God for judgment. Believers will not be judged in terms of salvation and eternal life by their deeds, but they will be judged in terms of rewards.

Those who have not put their faith in Jesus will experience the second death, which itself will destroy humanity’s final foe, death itself.

Postmillennial

It must be Jesus upon the great white throne, because Jesus is was before presented on a white cloud, and a white horse. In John’s Gospel, Jesus had explained the Father giving him all authority to judge, and in Matthew, that it would be he sitting in glory as all humankind was brought before him. Paul depicted a similar scene to Timothy,

Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom …

2 Timothy 4:1 (NRSVUE, emphases added)

John also affirmed in his Gospel that all people—the faithful and the condemned—will be judged at the same event,

Do not be astonished at this, for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and will come out: those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation.

John 5:28-29 (NRSVUE)

an event Luke corroborated,

… there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous.

Acts 24:15

Distinctive of postmillennial thought is the fulfillment of Paul’s prophecy:

For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

1 Corinthians 15:25-26 (NRSVUE, emphases added)

The three millennial views are taken from Revelation: Four Views A Parallel Commentary, edited by Steve Gregg