3. The Significance of God’s Work of Judgment and Chastisement
Relevant Words of God:
The work of the last days is to sort all according to their kind, and to conclude the management plan of God, for the time is near and the day of God has come. God brings all who enter His kingdom—all who are loyal to Him to the very end—into the age of God Himself. Yet prior to the arrival of the age of God Himself, God’s work is not to inspect the deeds of man, or to inquire into the life of man, but to judge man’s rebelliousness, for God shall purify all those who come before His throne. All who have followed the footsteps of God to this day are those who come before the throne of God, and this being so, every single person who accepts God’s work in its final phase is the object of God’s purification. In other words, everyone who accepts God’s work in its final phase is the object of God’s judgment.
—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Christ Does the Work of Judgment With the Truth
Christ of the last days uses a variety of truths to teach man, to expose the substance of man, and to dissect the words and deeds of man. These words comprise various truths, such as man’s duty, how man should submit to God, how man should be loyal to God, how man ought to live out normal humanity, as well as the wisdom and the disposition of God. These words are all directed at the substance of man and his corrupt dispositions. In particular, the words that expose how man rejects God are even more so directed at how man is an embodiment of Satan, and a hostile force against God. In undertaking His work of judgment, God does not fully explain the nature of man in a few words; He exposes and prunes over the long term. All these different methods of exposure and pruning cannot be substituted with ordinary words; rather, the truth which man absolutely does not possess is used to carry out this work of exposure and pruning. Only methods such as these can be called judgment; only through judgment of this kind can man be subdued and thoroughly convinced about God, and moreover gain true knowledge of God. What the work of judgment brings about is man’s understanding of the true face of God and the truth about his own rebelliousness. The work of judgment has enabled man to gain much understanding of the intentions of God, of the purpose of God’s work, and of the mysteries that are incomprehensible to him. It has also enabled man to understand and know his corrupt essence and the root of his corruption, as well as to discover his ugly face. These effects are all brought about by the work of judgment, for the essence of this work is actually the work of opening up God’s truth, way, and life to all those who have faith in Him. This work is the work of judgment done by God.
—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Christ Does the Work of Judgment With the Truth
In essence, God does the work of chastisement and judgment to purify humanity, and for the sake of the ultimate day of rest; otherwise no members of humanity could be sorted according to their kind, or enter into rest. This work is humanity’s only path to enter into rest. Only God’s work of purification will cleanse humans of their unrighteousness, and only His work of chastisement and judgment will expose those rebellious elements of humanity, thereby distinguishing those who can be saved from those who cannot, and those who can remain from those who cannot. When this work ends, those people who can remain will all be purified and enter a higher realm of humanity in which they will enjoy a more wonderful second human life upon the earth; in other words, they will enter into humanity’s day of rest and live together with God. After those who cannot remain have been chastised and judged, their true colors will be entirely exposed, after which they will all be destroyed and, like Satan, will no longer be permitted to survive upon the earth. The humanity of the future will no longer include any people of this sort; such people are not fit to enter the land of the ultimate rest, nor are they fit to enter into the day of rest that God and humanity will share, for they are the targets of punishment, and they are evil ones, not righteous people.
—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. God and Man Will Enter Into Rest Together
In His final work of concluding the age, God’s disposition is one of chastisement and judgment, in which He reveals all that is unrighteous, publicly judges the myriad peoples, and perfects those who sincerely love Him. Only a disposition such as this can bring the age to an end. The last days have already arrived. All things are sorted according to their kind, and divided into different categories based on their different qualities. This is precisely the time when God reveals people’s outcomes and destinations. If people do not experience chastisement and judgment, then their rebelliousness and unrighteousness cannot be exposed. Only through chastisement and judgment can the outcomes of all things be revealed. People only show what they truly are when they are chastised and judged. Evil shall be put with evil, good with good, and all people shall be sorted according to their kind. Through chastisement and judgment, the outcomes of all things will be revealed, so that the evil may be punished and the good rewarded, and the myriad people surrender to the dominion of God. All this work must be achieved through righteous chastisement and judgment. Because people’s corruption has reached its peak and their rebelliousness is exceedingly severe, only God’s righteous disposition, one that is principally compounded of chastisement and judgment and is revealed during the last days, can fully transform people and make them complete, and reveal evil, and all the unrighteous will thus be severely punished.
—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. The Vision of God’s Work (3)
Today God judges you, chastises you, and condemns you, but you should know that the point of your condemnation is for you to know yourself. He condemns, curses, judges, and chastises so that you might know yourself, so that your disposition might change, and, even more than this, so that you might know your worth, and see that all of God’s actions are righteous and in accordance with His disposition and the needs of His work, that He works in accordance with His plan for man’s salvation, and that He is the righteous God who loves and saves man, and who judges and chastises man as well. If you only know that you are of lowly status, that you are corrupt and rebellious, but do not know that God intends to reveal His salvation through the judgment and chastisement that He does on you today, then you have no way of experiencing things, much less are you capable of continuing forward. God has not come to strike down or destroy people, but to judge, curse, chastise, and save them. Until His 6,000-year management plan comes to a close—before He reveals the outcome of each category of man—God’s work on earth is entirely for the sake of salvation; its purpose is purely to make those who love Him thoroughly complete and to bring them to surrender under His dominion. No matter how God saves people, it is all done by making them break away from their old satanic nature; that is, He saves them by having them pursue life. If they do not do so, then they will have no way to accept God’s salvation. Salvation is the work of God Himself, and the pursuit of life is something that man must have in order to accept salvation. In the eyes of man, salvation is the love of God, and the love of God cannot be chastisement, judgment, and curses; salvation must contain mercy, lovingkindness, and, moreover, words of solace, as well as boundless blessings bestowed by God. People believe that when God saves man, He does so by moving him with His blessings and grace, and thereby getting him to give his heart to God. That is to say, His touching man is His saving him. This sort of salvation is transactional. Only when God grants him a hundredfold will man come to surrender before God’s name, and thereby make God proud and do credit to Him. This is not God’s intention for mankind. God has come to work on earth in order to save corrupt mankind; there is no falsehood in this. If this were not the case, He would certainly not have come to do His work in person. In the past, His means of salvation involved showing the utmost mercy and lovingkindness, such that He gave His all to Satan in exchange for the whole of mankind. The present is nothing like the past: Your salvation today occurs at the time of the last days, when each is sorted according to their kind; the means of your salvation is not mercy or lovingkindness, but chastisement and judgment, in order that man may be more thoroughly saved. Thus, all that you receive is chastisement, judgment, and unfeeling smiting, but know this: In this unfeeling smiting there is not the slightest punishment. Regardless of how harsh My words might be, what comes upon you are but a few words that might appear utterly heartless to you, and no matter how angry I might be, what comes upon you are still words of reproach, and I do not mean to harm you or put you to death. Is this not all fact? Know that nowadays, whether it be righteous judgment or unfeeling refinement and chastisement, everything is for the sake of salvation. Regardless of whether today each will be sorted according to their kind or whether all sorts of people will be revealed, the purpose of all of God’s words and work is to save those who truly love God. Righteous judgment is brought to purify man, and unfeeling refinement is done to cleanse him; harsh words or chastening are both done to purify and are for the sake of salvation. Thus, today’s method of salvation is unlike that of the past. Today, righteous judgment serves as your salvation, and as a good tool for sorting you each according to your kind, and unfeeling chastisement serves as your utmost salvation. What have you to say in the face of such chastisement and judgment? Have you not always enjoyed salvation, from start to finish? You have seen God incarnate and realized His almightiness and wisdom; in addition, you have experienced repeated smiting and discipline. However, have you not also received supreme grace? Are your blessings not greater than those of anyone else? Your graces are more bounteous even than the glory and riches enjoyed by Solomon! Think about it: If My intention in coming were to condemn and punish you rather than save you, could your days have lasted so long? Could you sinful beings of flesh and blood have survived until today? If My goal were merely to punish you, then why would I have become flesh and embarked upon such a great enterprise? Could punishing you nobodies not simply be done by uttering a single word? Would I still need to destroy you after purposely condemning you? Do you still not believe these words of Mine? Could I save man merely through mercy and lovingkindness? Or could I only use the crucifixion to save man? Is My righteous disposition not more conducive to making man completely submissive? Is it not more capable of thoroughly saving man?
—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. You Should Let Go of the Blessings of Status and Understand God’s Intention to Bring Salvation to Man
In truth, the work being done now is to cause people to rebel against Satan and their old ancestor. Judgments by the word all aim to expose people’s corrupt dispositions and to enable them to understand the essence of life. These repeated judgments pierce people’s hearts. Each judgment directly relates to their fates and is meant to wound their hearts so that they can let go of all those things and thereby come to know life, know this filthy world, know God’s wisdom and almightiness, and also know mankind, which is corrupted by Satan. The more chastisement and judgment is like this, the more man’s heart can be wounded and the more his spirit can be awakened. The goal of such judgment is to awaken the spirits of these extremely corrupted and most deeply deluded people. Man has no spirit, that is, his spirit died long ago and he knows not that there is Heaven, knows not that there is a God, and certainly knows not that he is struggling in the abyss of death; how could he possibly know that he is living in this evil human hell? How could he possibly know that this putrid corpse of his has fallen into Hades of death after it was corrupted by Satan? How could he possibly know that all things on earth have long been ruined beyond repair by mankind? And how could he possibly know that the Creator has come to the earth today and is searching for a group of corrupted people whom He can save? Even though man has experienced every possible refinement and judgment, his numb consciousness has remained entirely unmoved and is virtually unresponsive. How degenerate is man! And though this kind of judgment is like the cruel hail that falls from the sky, it is of the greatest benefit to man. Without judging people like this, the result could not be achieved, and it would be absolutely impossible to save people from the abyss of misery. Without working in this way, it would be very difficult for people to emerge from Hades, because their hearts long ago died and their spirits long ago were trampled by Satan. Saving you who have sunk to the deepest depths of degeneration requires calling out to you strenuously, judging you strenuously; only then can your frozen hearts be awakened.
—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Only the Perfected Can Live a Meaningful Life
All of you live in a land of sin and licentiousness, and you are all licentious and sinful. Today you are not just able to see God, but more importantly, you have received chastisement and judgment, you have received this deepest salvation, which is to say, you have received God’s greatest love. All that God does is true love for you. He has no ill intention. It is because of your sins that He judges you, so that you can reflect on yourselves and receive this tremendous salvation. All this work is done for the purpose of making man complete. From beginning to end, God has been doing His utmost to save man, and He simply has no desire to completely destroy the people He created with His own hands. Today, He has come among you to work; is this not salvation all the more? If He hated you, would He still do work of such magnitude to personally guide you? Why should He suffer so? God does not hate you or have any ill intentions toward you. You should know that God’s love is most real. It is only because people are rebellious that He has to save them through judgment; otherwise, it would still be impossible to save them. Because you do not know how to live your lives and are not aware of how to live, and because you live in this licentious and sinful land and are yourselves licentious and filthy demons, He cannot bear to let you continue to sink lower, He cannot bear to see you living in this filthy land as you do now, trampled on by Satan at will, and He cannot bear to let you fall into Hades. He only wants to gain this group of people and thoroughly save you. This is the main purpose of doing the work of conquest on you—it is for salvation. If you cannot see that everything done on you is love and salvation, if you think it is just a method, a way to torment man, and something untrustworthy, then you might as well go back to your world to suffer pain and hardship! If you are willing to enjoy, within this stream, this judgment and this immense saving grace, all of these blessings which cannot be found anywhere in the human world, and this love, then be good: Stay in this stream to accept the work of conquest so you can be made perfect. Today, you suffer a little pain and refinement because of God’s judgment, but there is value and meaning to suffering this pain. Although to man, God’s chastisement and judgment are refinement, merciless exposure, and things carried out for the purpose of punishing him for his sins and punishing his flesh, none of this work is intended to condemn his flesh and destroy it. The harsh exposure of the word is all for the purpose of leading you onto the right path. You have personally experienced so much of this work and, clearly, it has not led you onto an evil path! It is all in order to make you live out normal humanity, and it is all achievable by your normal humanity. Every step of God’s work is based upon your needs, according to your weaknesses, and according to your actual stature, and no unbearable burden is forced upon you. This is not clear to you today, and you feel as if I am being hard on you, and you always believe that the reason I chastise, judge, and reproach you every day is because I hate you. But although what you receive is chastisement and judgment, this is actually love for you, and it is the greatest protection.
—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. The Real Story of the Work of Conquest (4)
Only by becoming flesh in the most backward and filthy of places can God reveal the entirety of His holy and righteous disposition. And through what is His righteous disposition revealed? It is revealed through His judging of man’s sins, His judging of Satan, His detestation of sin, and His hatred of the enemies that resist and rebel against Him. The words I speak today are to judge man’s sins, to judge man’s unrighteousness, and to curse man’s rebelliousness and man’s crookedness and deceitfulness. All that is not in accordance with God’s intentions in man’s words and deeds must be subjected to judgment, and all of man’s rebelliousness is characterized as sin. His words revolve around the principles of judgment; He uses judgment of man’s unrighteousness, the curse of man’s rebelliousness, and exposure of all of man’s ugly faces to make manifest His righteous disposition. Holiness is a representation of His righteous disposition, and in fact His holiness is His righteous disposition. Your corrupt dispositions are the context of today’s words—I speak and judge, and carry out the work of conquest according to them. This alone is the practical work, and only in this way can God’s holiness be fully accentuated. If there is no trace of a corrupt disposition in you, then God will not judge you, nor will He show you His righteous disposition. Since you have corrupt dispositions, God will not let you off, and it is through this that His holiness is shown. If God were to see that man’s filthiness and rebelliousness were too great but He did not speak or judge you, nor chastise you for your unrighteousness, then this would prove that He is not God, for He would have no hatred of sin; He would be just as filthy as man. Today, it is because of your filth that I judge you, and it is because of your corruption and rebelliousness that I chastise you. I am not flaunting My power to you or deliberately oppressing you; I do these things because you, who have been born in this land of filth, have been so severely contaminated by filth. You have simply lost your integrity and humanity, like swine that live in dirty places. It is because of your filth and corruption that you are judged and that I unleash My wrath upon you. It is precisely because of the judgment of these words that you have been able to see that God is the righteous God, and that God is the holy God; it is precisely because of His holiness and His righteousness that He judges you and unleashes His wrath upon you; it is precisely because He sees the rebelliousness of mankind that He reveals His righteous disposition. Mankind’s filth and corruption reveals His holiness. This is enough to show that He is God Himself, who is holy and immaculate, and yet lives in the land of filth.
—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. How the Effects of the Second Step of the Work of Conquest Are Achieved
God does the work of judgment and chastisement so that man may gain knowledge of Him, and for the sake of His testimony. Without His judgment of man’s corrupt disposition, man could not possibly know His righteous disposition, which must not be offended, nor would man be able to turn his old knowledge of God into a new one. For the sake of His testimony, and for the sake of His management, He makes His entirety public, thus enabling man, through His public appearance, to arrive at knowledge of God, to be transformed in his disposition, and to bear resounding witness for God. The transformation of the disposition of man is achieved through many different kinds of God’s work; without such changes in his disposition, man would be unable to bear witness to God and to accord with God’s intentions. The transformation of man’s disposition signifies that man has been freed from Satan’s bondage and from the influence of darkness, and has truly become a model and specimen of God’s work, a witness of God, and one who accords with God’s intentions. Today, God incarnate has come to earth to do His work, and He requires that man achieve knowledge of Him, submission to Him, and testimony to Him—man is to know God’s practical and normal work, he is to submit to all of His words and work which do not accord with the notions of man, and he is to bear witness to all the work He does to save man, as well as all His deeds of conquering man. Those who bear witness to God must have knowledge of God; only this kind of testimony is accurate and practical, and only this kind of testimony can shame Satan. God uses those who have come to know Him through undergoing His judgment, chastisement, and pruning, to bear witness to Him. He uses those who have been corrupted by Satan to bear witness to Him. He uses those whose disposition has changed, and who have thus gained His blessings, to bear witness to Him. He does not need man to praise Him with his mouth, nor does He need the praise and testimony of the ilk of Satan, who have not been saved by Him.
—The Word, Vol. 1. The Appearance and Work of God. Only Those Who Know God Can Bear Witness for God