What Christadelphians believe about ...

Resurrection and Judgment

When Christ first returns, he will assemble all those who are responsible to judgment, living or dead. The dead he will bring from their graves; the living he will gather by his angels.

• "Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake." Daniel 12:2
• "And shall come forth, they that have done good to the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation." John 5:29
• "We shall not all sleep … We who are alive and remain shall he caught away together with them in the clouds." 1 Corinthians 15:51; 1 Thessalonians 4:17

They must all appear before his judgment seat, that they may receive through the body according to what they have done in this present life.

• "Jesus Christ shall judge the living and the dead at his appearing." 2 Timothy 4:1
• "We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things in the body according to that he hath done, whether good or bad." 2 Corinthians 5:10
• "We shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ … Every one of us shall give account of himself to God." Romans 14:10-12

All who know the truth, whether they submit to it or refuse, are responsible to judgment.

• "He that believeth not shall be condemned." Mark 16:16
• "The judgment of God is according to truth against them who commit such things … Unto them that are contentious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness (shall be) indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil … in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Christ Jesus." Romans 2:2, 8, 9, 16
• "He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day." John 12:48

There are many who are not responsible, for it is the light that makes responsible. Darkness covers the earth, and where there is darkness, sin is not imputed.

• "If ye were blind, ye should have no sin." John 9:41
• "Man that is in honour, and understandeth not, is like the beasts that perish" Psalm 49:20
• "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloak for their sin." John 15:22

Those who are not responsible die and pass out of memory, as if they had never been.

• "They shall go to the generation of their fathers; they shall never see light." Psalm 49:19
• "They shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake." Jeremiah 51:57
• "They are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise: therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish." Isaiah 26:14

The righteous among the responsible will receive immortal nature. Their mortal bodies will be changed in a moment by the power of the Spirit of God.

• "He shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body." Philippians 3:21
• "We shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye … This mortal must put on immortality." 1 Corinthians 15:53
• "He shall render eternal life to them who, by patient continuance in well doing, seek for glory and honour and immortality." Romans 2 7

Those whom Christ rejects will depart from his presence with shame and vexation, at last to be devoured by the second death.

• "There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the Kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out." Luke 13:28
• "Some to shame and everlasting contempt." Daniel 12:2
• "He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption." Galatians 6:8