Pontius Pilate represents all secular power and justice but in its tragic claim to subject the Truth of Christ, the Truth who is Christ, to the perverse standard of human pride. He is aided and abetted, in fact he is cynically manipulated, by the corrupt religious power of the time: which is really just another, and even more horrendous, form of institutional pride. In purporting to judge and condemn Christ, it does in reality only judge and condemn itself. Pride claims to define what is true independently of God and contrary to God. But Christ alone is the Truth and all who are on the side of Truth listen to His voice. He has already spoken the fulness of Truth. So, when He comes in glory to judge the living and the dead, the definitive judgment of history will be delivered in the light of His Word.

The resurrection of all the dead, of both the just and the unjust, will precede the Last Judgment. This will be the hour when all who are in the tombs will hear Christ’s voice and come forth: those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment. Christ will come in his glory, and all the angels and saints with him. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. In the presence of Christ, who is Truth itself, the truth of each human person’s relationship with God will be laid bare. The Last Judgment will reveal, even to its furthest consequences, the good each person has done or failed to do during their earthly life.

Through the Son, the Father will pronounce the final word on all history. We shall know the ultimate meaning of the whole work of creation and of redemption. We shall understand the marvellous ways by which Providence has led everything towards its final end. The Last Judgment will reveal that God’s justice triumphs over all the injustices committed by his creatures and that God’s love is stronger than death. The message of the Last Judgment is a call to us to convert to Christ, while the Father is still giving us “the acceptable time, the day of salvation.” It inspires a holy fear of God and commits us to live in the justice of the Kingdom of God. It proclaims the “blessed hope” of the Lord’s return, when he will come “to be glorified in his saints, and to be marvelled at in all who have believed.”

At the end of time, the Kingdom of God will come in its fullness. After the universal judgment, the righteous will reign for ever with Christ, glorified in body and soul. The universe itself will be renewed. The Church herself will receive her perfection only in the glory of heaven, when there will come the time of the renewal of all things. At that time, the universe itself, which is so closely related to the human race, and which attains its destiny through it, will be perfectly renewed in Christ. The Word of God calls this mysterious renewal, which will transform humanity and the world, the “new heavens and new earth.” It will be the definitive realization of God’s plan to bring under a single head “all things in [Christ], things in heaven and things on earth.”

In this new universe, also called the heavenly Jerusalem, God will have his dwelling among us. “He will wipe away every tear from our eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.” For the human race, this consummation will be the final realization of its unity, which God has willed from the beginning of creation. It is a unity already present in sacramental form in the pilgrim Church of which we are part. Those who are united with Christ will form the community of the redeemed, “the holy city” of God, “the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.” She will not be wounded any longer by sin or by the self-love which destroys or wounds the earthly community. The beatific vision, in which God opens himself in an inexhaustible way to His chosen, will be the ever-flowing well-spring of happiness, peace, and communion with one another.

God’s Word affirms the profound common destiny of the material world and of the human race. For creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God because creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay. The visible universe, then, is destined to be transformed, so that the world itself, restored to its original state, should be at the service of the just, sharing their glorification in the risen Jesus Christ.

We know neither the moment of the consummation of the earth and of humankind, nor the way in which the universe will be transformed. The form of this world, distorted by sin, is passing away, and we are taught that God is preparing a new home in which righteousness dwells, in which happiness will fill and surpass all the desires of peace arising in our hearts. Far from diminishing our concern to develop this earth, the expectation of a new earth should spur us on to develop this one even more, for it is here that the body of a new human family grows, foreshadowing in some way the age which is to come. Although we must be careful to distinguish earthly progress clearly from the growth of the kingdom of Christ, such progress is of vital concern to the kingdom of God, insofar as it can contribute to the better ordering of human society.

If we have used the gifts of nature according to the command of the Lord and in the power of his Spirit, we will find them once again in the new world. But they will be cleansed from the stain of sin, illuminated and transfigured, when Christ presents to his Father an eternal and universal kingdom. God will then be “all in all” in eternal life. True life, real life, consists in this: that the Father, through the Son and in the Holy Spirit, continuously pours out his heavenly gifts on all things without exception. Thanks to his mercy, we too have received the inviolable promise of this same eternal life. It will be ours if we surrender ourselves in love to Jesus Christ our King who was judged and suffered under Pontius Pilate so that we might be set free from eternal death. He alone is the hope of humanity and of the universe. In Him, then, let us confidently place our trust.