Revelation 20:12 - Printer Friendly

ESV: And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.

NIV: And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.

NASB: And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds.

CSB: I also saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged according to their works by what was written in the books.

NLT: I saw the dead, both great and small, standing before God’s throne. And the books were opened, including the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to what they had done, as recorded in the books.

KJV: And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.

NKJV: And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books.

Standing before the great white throne are the resurrected dead who were not saved—those who did not accept Christ during life (John 3:36). These doomed individuals represent all classes of human beings, from paupers to princes. They are being judged by the Faithful and True Judge, who died to provide a way of escape from sin and eternal punishment (John 3:16–18). Those assembled at the great white throne rejected Jesus' redemptive work and His gracious invitation to believe on Him and have everlasting life (John 6:37). As a result, rather than being judged on the basis of Christ's work, they face the record of their sins when the books are opened. The record shows they sinned and failed to repent.

At the same time, another book is opened, which is the book of life. As verse 15 points out, the doomed are sentenced to eternal punishment because their names are not written in the book of life. Being judged "by what was written in the books, according to what they had done" may imply there are degrees of punishment in hell, but the absence of a defendant's name from the Lamb's book of life is the determining factor in his or her consignment to hell.

Revelation 20:11–15 occurs just after the end of the kingdom reign of Christ on earth, when Satan was released for a brief time. He gathered rebel forces together to battle God and His saints, but lost and was cast into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:7–10). The next event described by John is the judgment at the great white throne. This is the point where unbelievers are judged according to their actions—a death sentence for everyone not saved through Christ (Romans 6:23). Chapter 21 describes the descent of the New Jerusalem from heaven and the beginning of the eternal age.

Revelation chapter 20 represents the final lesson, final judgment, and final victory of the end times. Satan is bound, but not destroyed, and released after a thousand years of peace and righteousness. Proving that no evidence or reason to believe in and follow Jesus is enough for those determined to rebel, some follow Satan and are destroyed in a rebellion. Those who died without faith in Christ, through all of history, are resurrected to face the great white throne judgment. There, they are sentenced for sin and consigned eternally to the lake of fire.

This chapter comes between the account of our Lord's decisive victory at Armageddon and the descent of the New Jerusalem from heaven to earth. It focuses on the beginning of Jesus' reign on the earth and the great white throne judgment when unbelievers from all periods of history are judged and sentenced to eternal suffering in the lake of fire. Daniel 7:18, Isaiah 11, Joel 3:16–21, Obadiah 1:21, and Micah 4:2 are just a few of the Old Testament references to the reign of Jesus on the earth. After this point in the end times, evil has been entirely and completely defeated.

The word ''revelation'' means ''an unveiling or disclosure.'' This writing unveils future events such as the rapture, three series of judgments that will fall on the earth during the tribulation, the emergence of the Antichrist, the persecution of Israel and her amazing revival, as well as Jesus' second coming with His saints to the earth, the judgment of Satan and his followers, and finally, the eternal state. This content, combined with the original Greek term apokalypsis, is why we now refer to an end-of-the-world scenario as ''an apocalypse.''