The Resurrection and Biblical Anthropology
THE LAST JUDGMENT
… Then all men will personally appear before this great Judge, both men and women and children, that have been from the beginning of the world to the end thereof, being summoned by the voice of the archangel and by the sound of the trumpet of God. For all the dead shall be raised out of the earth, and their souls joined and united with their proper bodies in which they formerly lived. As for those who shall then be living, they shall not die as the others, but be changed in the twinkling of an eye, and from corruptible become incorruptible. Then the books (that is to say, the consciences) shall be opened, and the dead judged according to what they shall have done in this world, whether it be good or evil. Nay, all men shall give an account of every idle word they have spoken, which the world only counts amusement and jest; and then the secrets and hypocrisy of men shall be disclosed and laid open before all …
Prof. David J. Engelsma: “The message that the Reformed church proclaims, according to article 37 of the Belgic Confession, to believer and unbeliever alike, is that physical death is not the end. For the believer, this is a message of hope and comfort, especially in circumstances of persecution and suffering. For the wicked, this message is warning. It shatters the self-delusion of the ungodly that this life is all that there is to human existence, itself a notion of despair. The reality of physical death explains the sheer pessimism of much of contemporary philosophy, as well as the underlying pessimism of the drug culture among the youth in Western society. Apart from the gospel of the resurrection of the dead unto eternal life of those who believe in the risen Jesus Christ, human life is utterly hopeless and therefore vanity” (The Belgic Confession: A Commentary, vol. 2, pp. 355-356).