Judgment Day


Bruce R. McConkie



Whenever the judgments of God are poured out upon men, it is a day of judgment, a day of vengeance, a day when in a very realistic sense the books have been opened, the condemned persons found wanting, and a just punishment meted out to them.

Inspired history abounds in illustrations of this type of judgment day. For the entire population of the earth, except those on the ark, the flood of Noah was a day of judgment and destruction. (Gen. 7:11-24; 1 Pet. 3:20-21.) Judgment day came to Sodom and Gomorrah when the Lord rained fire and brimstone upon them (Gen. 18; 19), and it came to Pharaoh and his Egyptian hosts when they were subjected to the plagues and were finally drowned in the Red Sea. (Ex. 7; 8; 9; 10; 11; 14.) Korah and his band stood before the judgment bar when the earth opened and swallowed them, and their 14,700 sympathizers who died of the plague were likewise judged and found wanting. (Num. 16.)

It was judgment day for the Amalekites when Israel, at the Lord's command, utterly destroyed them and all their property. (1 Sam. 15.) The rebellious Nephites destroyed in the tempests, earthquakes, whirlwinds, and fires at the time of the crucifixion faced their judgment day. (3 Ne. 8; 9; 10.) People in the world today, suffering in the wars and perils the Lord has decreed should prevail in the last days. (D. & C. 63:32-36), are similarly called upon to face a day of judgment.

2. Death itself is an initial day of judgment for all persons, both the righteous and the wicked. When the spirit leaves the body at death, it is taken home to that God who gave it life, meaning that it returns to live in the realm of spiritual existence. (Eccles. 12:7.) At that time the spirit undergoes a partial judgment and is assigned an inheritance in paradise or in hell to await the day of the first or second resurrection. The righteous go to paradise, "a state of happiness, ... a state of rest, a state of peace, where they shall rest from all their troubles and from all care, and sorrow." The wicked are "cast out into outer darkness; there shall fit weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth, and this because of their own iniquity, being led captive by the will of the devil." (Alma 40:11-14; Luke 16:19-31.)

3. Christ's Second Coming will be a day of judgment for all those then living and for the righteous dead (and in a sense for the wicked dead also). "When the Son of man shall come in this glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left." (Matt. 25:31-46.)

"I will come near to you to judgment," the Lord says, speaking of his Second Coming, "and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts." (Mal. 3:5.)

That is the day when every person then living shall find answer to the queries, "Who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth?" In that day "he shall sit as a refiner and purifier" (Mal. 3:2-3); "all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly" (Mal. 4:1), shall be burned as stubble. "And every corruptible thing, both of man, or of the beasts of the field, or of the fowls of the heavens, or of the fish of the sea, that dwells upon all the face of the earth, shall be consumed." (D. & C. 101:24.)

"I have trodden the winepress alone, and have brought judgment upon all people," our Lord will say at the day of his Second Coming. To the wicked that judgment day is a "day of vengeance"; to the righteous it is a year of redemption, for they shall abide the day. (D. & C. 133:50-53.)

Of the judgment to take place at the Second Coming, John wrote: "I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years." The wicked, he saw, "lived not again until the thousand years were finished." (Rev. 20:3-6; D. & C. 88:95-99.)

4. After all men have been resurrected the day of the great final judgment will come. Every living soul shall then stand before God, the books will be opened, and the dead will he judged out of those things written in the books, according to their works. (Rev. 20:11-15.) "And it shall come to pass," Jacob said, "that when all men shall have passed from this first death unto life, insomuch as they have become immortal, they must appeal before the judgment-seat of the Holy One of Israel; and then cometh the judgment and then must they be judged according to the holy judgment of God." (2 Ne. 9:15-16.)

5. Though there are specific times and formal occasions designated as days of judgment, in the final analysis every day is a day of judgment for every person, and every man is his own judge. By obedience to celestial, terrestrial, or telestial law men thereby develop celestial, terrestrial, or telestial bodies, which particular kind of bodies are then restored to them in the resurrection. (D. & C. 88:16-33.)

"It is requisite with the justice of God that men should be judged according to their works," Alma says, "and if their works were good in this life, and the desires of their hearts were good, that they should also, at the last day, be restored unto that which is good. And if their works are evil they shall be restored unto them for evil." (Alma 41:3-4.) The kind of body gained in this life and restored to a person in the resurrection determines the degree of glory inherited in eternity. Thus men are "their own judges," Alma concludes, for by their daily acts they judge or choose "whether to do good or do evil." (Alma 41:7.)

It is very evident that men will not have to await the day of final judgment — the formal occasion when every living soul will stand before the judgment bar, an event that will not take place until the last soul has been resurrected — to learn their status and the degree of glory they are to receive in eternity. Those who are living a telestial law will be swept off the earth at the Second Coming. (D. & C. 101:24; Mal. 3; 4.) Those who come forth in the morning of the first resurrection, who "are Christ's, the first fruits," will have celestial bodies and go to a celestial kingdom.

"Those who are Christ's at his coming" will come forth with terrestrial bodies and go to a terrestrial kingdom. Similarly those coming forth in the beginning of the second resurrection will have telestial bodies and go to a telestial kingdom, while the sons of perdition, the last to be resurrected, will have bodies capable of receiving no glory and will be cast out with the devil and his angels forever. (D. & C. 88:98-102.)


No one has yet been resurrected with any kind of a body except a celestial. Those who were with Christ in his resurrection will all have eternal inheritance in his celestial presence. (D. & C. 133:54-56.) Though there is yet to be a day of formal judgment for all men, yet there is no question, for instance, of the reward that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will receive in that day. "They have entered into their exaltation, according to the promises, and sit upon thrones, and are not angels but are gods" the revelation records. (D. & C. 132:29-37.) The same is true of Adam, Enoch, Noah, Moses, and the faithful saints from the beginning to the day of Christ.


Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 1958, 1966