Last Judgment

The Last Judgment is the final horizon toward which the poem’s history of rebellion, fall, judgment, redemption, and restoration moves. It is not merely a sentence imposed at the end of time, but the public completion of the Son’s mediating work: the one who assumes human nature, dies for human transgression, rises victorious over Death, and ascends to Heaven returns as universal King and Judge. At that return, the divided history of Heaven, Earth, and Hell is brought before one tribunal, evil is finally exposed and defeated, and creation itself passes through destruction into renewal.

Appointment of the Judge

The authority of the Last Judgment is established when God assigns judgment to the Son. After Adam and Eve’s transgression, the Father declares that the Son is to judge in Heaven, Earth, and Hell, while also serving as humanity’s Friend, Mediator, voluntary Ransom, and Redeemer. The Son accepts this office as an extension of obedience: he will descend to judge the transgressors, yet the worst burden of judgment will fall upon himself because he has already undertaken humanity’s redemption. His task is therefore defined by a deliberate union of justice and mercy. Judgment must satisfy the law, but it must also reveal the saving purpose of the Son’s sacrifice.

The Son’s authority is later presented as the reward and consequence of his self-emptying love. God promises that the incarnate Son will reign as both God and Man, universal King, and supreme Head over thrones, princedoms, powers, and dominions. Every knee in Heaven, Earth, and Hell will bow before him. The Last Judgment thus reverses the political theology of Satan’s revolt: Satan claims that angelic freedom forbids monarchy, while Abdiel maintains that the Son’s rule is legitimate because all created powers receive their being and dignity through him. The final tribunal confirms that sovereignty belongs not to the self-exalting rebel but to the obedient ruler whose authority is joined to sacrificial goodness.

The Universal Summons

The judgment begins with a public return. The Son appears from Heaven in glory and sends the Archangels to proclaim his dread tribunal. The summons reaches across the whole created order: the living come from every wind, and the dead of all past ages are called from their sleep. No historical period remains outside the reckoning. The Last Judgment gathers the entire human race into one moment of disclosure, making private actions and inherited consequences answerable before the same sovereign power.

This universal assembly also extends beyond humanity. The Son judges bad men and angels, while Satan’s rebellion is treated as an already established conviction. His flight has exposed his revolt against all law, so he does not require the same process of accusation as the human transgressors. Hell, once the refuge and imagined kingdom of the rebels, reaches its full number and is then shut forever. The rebellious powers who sought freedom through separation from divine order discover that their supposed independence ends in confinement and irreversible exclusion.

Justice, Mercy, and Redemption

The Last Judgment gives final form to the poem’s distinction between justice and arbitrary vengeance. Humanity’s fall proceeds from free will rather than from a decree that forces disobedience. Adam and Eve possess sufficient strength and freedom to resist the Tempter, but they violate the command concerning the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and incur the announced penalty of death. The Last Judgment therefore confirms moral responsibility: the sentence answers an act freely performed, not a fate imposed without consent.

Yet the final sentence is inseparable from redemption. The Son offers life for life, agrees to become Man, and accepts death on behalf of mortal humanity. He foresees that Death will not retain him, that he will rise, strip Death of its power, and lead the powers of darkness captive. His death becomes the payment of humanity’s debt, while his resurrection transforms death for the redeemed into a passage toward immortal life. The Last Judgment does not erase justice; it displays how divine mercy fulfills justice through the Son’s willing satisfaction and through faith joined to obedience.

The consequences of that redemption reach beyond the descendants of Abraham. After his resurrection, the Son appears to his Disciples, commissions them to teach all nations, and extends salvation to the Sons of Abraham’s Faith wherever they live. His Ascension places him at God’s right hand, from which he will return when the world’s dissolution is ripe. At the Last Judgment, the faithful are rewarded and received into bliss, while the unfaithful dead are judged. The scope of the event therefore matches the scope of the promise: in the Son’s seed, all nations may be blessed.

Destruction and Renewal of Creation

The tribunal is accompanied by the destruction of the present world. The world burns, and from its ashes arise a new Heaven and Earth. This is not a return to the unfallen Garden of Eden but a transformed creation, described as happier than Eden and founded on righteousness. The renewed order is marked by fruitful golden days, golden deeds, joy, love, and fair truth. The poem’s movement is therefore not from creation back to an unchanged beginning, but from creation through catastrophe toward a more complete and enduring restoration.

The renewal also resolves the political and cosmic hierarchy that rebellion had fractured. The Son rules until every enemy has been subdued; then, when the work of judgment and restoration is complete, he lays aside the regal scepter because a separate scepter is no longer needed. God becomes All in All. The end of monarchy here does not cancel the Son’s kingship; it fulfills its purpose by bringing every power into perfect unity with the Father. Rule gives way to an order in which conflict, opposition, and the need for coercive authority have disappeared.

Eschatological Meaning

The Last Judgment gathers together the poem’s largest reversals. Satan’s attempt to dispossess Heaven fails, but God repairs the apparent loss by creating a new human race. The rebellion that empties Heaven becomes the occasion for a wider history of creation, fall, redemption, and final restoration. Human death, first witnessed by Adam in the killing of Abel, is no longer the final meaning of mortality once the Son’s resurrection has opened the way to immortal life. The evil produced by disobedience is not called good in itself, but it is made to serve a greater good and to display divine wisdom.

Michael’s prophetic instruction leads Adam to recognize this pattern. Adam learns that the future Redeemer will overcome Satan, Sin, and Death; that the Son will return to judge the living and the dead; and that the Earth will become a Paradise more joyful than Eden. His response is a movement from anxious speculation toward disciplined wisdom. He accepts that obedience is better than forbidden knowledge, that faith must be joined to virtue, patience, temperance, and charity, and that suffering for truth can lead to the highest victory. The Last Judgment thus closes the arc of the poem not simply with punishment, but with an intelligible moral order in which love, obedience, and grace finally overcome rebellion, death, and corruption.