ACC ~ John 3 v18

THERE IS NO NEED TO JUDGE BELIEVERS

HILARY OF POITIERS: “He who believes,” says Christ, “is not judged.” And is there any need to judge a believer? Judgment arises out of ambiguity, and where ambiguity ceases, there is no call for trial and judgment. And so, not even unbelievers need to be judged, because there is no doubt about their being unbelievers. But after exempting believers and unbelievers alike from judgment, the Lord added a case for judgment of the human agents on whom it must be exercised. For there are some who stand midway between the godly and the ungodly, having affinities to both but strictly belonging to neither class, because they have come to be what they are by a combination of the two…. For many are kept within the pale of the church by the fear of God, yet they are tempted all the while to worldly faults by the allurements of the world. They pray, because they are afraid; they sin, because it is their will…. These, then, are they whom the judgment awaits that unbelievers have already had passed on them and believers do not need. HOMILY ON PSALM 1.21-22. [1]

[1] NPNF 2 9:241-42**.

DISBELIEF ITSELF IS THE PUNISHMENT

CHRYSOSTOM: He either means that disbelief itself is the punishment of the impenitent, insofar as being impenitent is to be without light, and to be without light is of itself the greatest punishment. Or he is announcing beforehand what is to be. Even if a murderer is not yet sentenced by the judge, still his crime has already condemned him. In the same way, he who does not believe is dead, even as Adam, on the day that he ate of the tree, died. [1] HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 28.1. [2]

[1] Gen 2:17 LXX.

[2] NPNF 1 14:97**.

THE DAY OF JUDGMENT

GREGORY THE GREAT: In the last judgment some perish without being judged. It says here of those… “He who does not believe is condemned already.”… Therefore, even all unbelievers rise again, but they rise to torment, not to judgment. For the day of judgment does not try those who are already banished from the sight of a discerning judge because of their unbelief. Rather, it tries those who, retaining the profession of faith, have no works to show that back up that profession. For those who have not kept even the sacraments of faith do not even hear the curse of the Judge at the last trial. They have already, in the darkness of their unbelief, received their sentence and are not thought worthy of being convicted by the rebuke of him whom they had despised again…. For an earthly sovereign, in the government of his state, has a different rule of punishment in the case of the disaffected subject and the foreign rebel. In the former case he consults the civil law, but against the enemy he proceeds at once to war and repays his malice with the punishment it deserves without referencing the law, inasmuch as he who never submitted to law has no claim to suffer by the law. MORALS ON THE BOOK OF JOB 26.27.50. [1]

[1] LF 23:171-72**.

SINS AND TRANSGRESSIONS IN OUR OWN POWER

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: The prophet says with justification, “The ungodly are not so, but as the chaff that the wind drives away from the face of the earth. And so, the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment” [1] because they are already condemned since “those who do not believe are condemned already.” “Nor do sinners sit in the counsel of the righteous,” inasmuch as they too are already condemned and are not united to those who have lived without stumbling. “For the Lord knows the way of the righteous; and the way of the ungodly shall perish.” [2] Again, the Lord clearly shows sins and transgression to be in our own power. STROMATEIS 2.15. [3]

[1] Ps 1:4-5.

[2] Ps 1:5-6.

[3] ANF 2:363*.

SEPARATION FROM GOD IS SELF-INFLICTED

IRENAEUS: Separation from God is death, and separation from light is darkness. Separation from God consists in the loss of all the benefits that he has in store…. This is the same thing that happens in the case of a flood of light: those who have blinded themselves or have been blinded by others are forever deprived of the enjoyment of light. It is not that the light has inflicted on them the penalty of blindness, but it is that the blindness itself has brought calamity on them. Therefore the Lord declared, “He who believes in me is not condemned,” that is, he is not separated from God, for he is united to God through faith. On the other hand, he says, “He who believes not is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God,” that is, he has separated himself from God by his own doing. AGAINST HERESIES 5.27.2. [1]

[1] SC 153:342-46; ANF 1:556**.