Now, from the Throne of glory and from the heavenly Tabernacle, the meaning of Judgment and of God's wrath is revealed before John not as before, when he saw them as if from within the history of that fallen world to which the spiritual horizon of a fallen person is usually limited. Then Judgment was revealed to the apostle as a series of catastrophes connected with the fact that the world, being unprepared for meeting God, as it changed and was transformed, inevitably collapsed in its former quality.

Now Judgment is connected above all with witness and with the standing before the Throne of glory of those who preserved faithfulness to Christ throughout the entire preceding age, including the last times. The power of God turns into plagues and bowls of God's wrath for the world. This is no wonder: now the apostle sees the situation as it is revealed from the fullness of the Kingdom, which is preparing to enter the world in this fullness. The Kingdom is the space of God's breath and God's love, and from the Throne of glory, from its spiritual center, it is seen precisely this way.

But when seen from the spiritual center of the Kingdom, the whole world appears as the Kingdom, except for that part of it which has been torn away from the Kingdom by evil will opposing God. And this part of the universe, torn away from the Kingdom, is precisely what in the Gospel is usually called the "outer darkness." Having found oneself in this space, one can see an entire world dwelling, if not in complete darkness, then in a half-light like long northern winter twilight; but from the outside it is perceived only as a bottomless dark abyss that can be filled only by the One who created the world.

And He fills it with His presence, with His power, but not with His love; not because His love is insufficient for the dark abyss or His breath does not penetrate there, but because the breath of God, when rejected as love, becomes for those who reject it a destructive force that kills them, though it cannot kill them completely, because God does not want to destroy His creation. So God's love becomes Judgment, and God's breath turns for those dwelling in the "outer darkness" into plagues and bowls of God's wrath.

“Great and marvelous are Your works, Lord God Almighty!” If we reflect on what God's works are, on what He creates, and on how He acts in the world and in our lives, then these words are probably the best possible conclusion to such reflection. The relationship between a person and God is perhaps built upon this: our worship of His greatness. To fear God and glorify His name. To fear Him does not, of course, mean to be frightened. But if we think about the boundlessness of His greatness, we are unlikely to be able to maintain our composure or feel at ease in His presence. Here lies the mystery of the relationship between a person and God: in the combination of limitless reverence and fear of God with love. For the fear of God, unlike ordinary human fear, urges us not to run away and hide, but to go out to meet Him.

The representation about the Judgment Day and the general resurrection was appropriate to most of the Jewish believers well before the coming into the world of the Savior. And this representation supposed that everybody comes to the Judgment, independently of the fact if during his life he belonged to the people of God or not. Such view on the Judgment was due, above all, to the understanding of the fact that the God of Israel is also the God of the whole world, and he will judge not only His people, but also all other peoples of the earth.

But under the light of the revelations of the New Testament, Christians began to look at the Judgment not quite as they looked at it and look at it the Jews. From the Jewish point of view, the Judgment is a process if not momentary, then in every case, more or less compressed in time, he supposes that the resuscitated come to the Judgment so that God sums up their life lived on earth and give the appropriate definition. For the Christian the Judgment begins with the coming into the world of the Messiah: indeed, Jesus says directly that the one who believes in Him does not come to the Judgment, but the one who rejects Him is condemned by the same rejection.

In such case we could call our time - the time of Judgment: because choice is possible until the day of the return of the Savior, when the results will be summarized. On the other hand, our time is not only the time of Judgment, but also the time of the Kingdom to come. One is connected with another: because the acceptance or the rejection of the Christ also means the acceptance or the rejection of this Kingdom that He brought into the world. And man does not come to the Judgment, according to His own words, not because he takes this or that decision, but because the decision to trust Christ also means the choice of the Kingdom, and the introduction to the life of the Kingdom eliminates the question of Judgment.

But if it is so, is it then any sense in general to speak about the Judgment in regard to the Christians? If we who call ourselves Christians were such in the fullness and till the end, then there would really be no sense to speak about the Judgment in relation to us, as there is no sense to speak about it in relation to those who in the Book of Revelation are called "participants of the first resurrection”, over whom “the second death has no power”.

In certain churches, such people are called "holy", although it would have been more exact to call their life example of the Christian righteousness (because "holy" in the books of the New Testament are called all the Christians without exception). But, since in our spiritual life we are rather often Christian only by moments, we join the life of the Kingdom from time to time, and most of the time we live the life of "this world", then we will have at the Judgment to sum up the result of this our dual and double minded existence. And there is only one means to avoid the Judgment: to finally become people spiritually whole and live only the life of the Kingdom. Or simply speaking, to finally become normal, real Christians.