Tag: Human interactions

Living in the Image of God, The Gospel

Binary Categorization at Judgment—Good or Evil

Living in the Image of God M07S07

This bible study discusses Christ binary categorization of a person based on performing or declining their individual responsibilities in human interactions and relationships. He categorizes as “good” (righteous) a person that he judges as “those who have done what is good.” In contrast, he categorizes as “evil” a person that he judges as “those who have done what is evil.” God will grant eternal life to every person that he judges as good but will condemn every person he judges as evil. Christ declares the categorization in an interaction documented in John 5:28–29. In another teaching, he tells the Parable of the Faithful and Wise Servant (Mathew 24:45–51) to explain that people that perform their individual responsibilities in human interactions are categorized good. The others are evil. In yet other teachings, he refers to the categories as “righteous” for the good and evil for the others. There is no middle category.

The study discusses Christ declaration of the categorization of people as good or evil (John 5:28–29) and his teaching in the Parable of the Faithful and Wise Servant (Mathew 24:45–51), where he explains the basis for the categorization. In other related teaching, he refers to the “good” category as righteous. Please see our previous study under M03S21, Righteous or Wicked in Parable of the Weeds.

Christ made the declaration as part of his response to Jews that had begun to persecute him based on their understanding that he was breaking the Sabbath (because he healed a blind man on the Sabbath) and that he called himself the Son of God: “For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God” [John 5:18].

In a different interaction (Mathew 24:45–51), he tells the Parable of Faithful and Wise Servant to explain the basis for the categorization. There he describes the human relationship with God in terms of an interaction between a hypothetical master and one of his servants. In the parable, Christ describes the master’s judgment of the servant based on performing his responsibilities to the other servants while the master was away. The master judged the servant as “faithful and wise” if he performed his responsibilities to the other servants. In contrast, the master would judge the servant as “wicked” if he declined his responsibilities to the other servants.

In the Parable of Faithful and Wise Servant, the master represents God and the servant represents any person (any individual regarding his or her relationship with God). The other servants represent other people in human interactions with the subject person. Christ uses the relationship between the subject person and other people to model human relationship with God, whereby God places every person to represent him among other people—to be for the others what God would be for them if he lived with us in human form. Therefore, the parable describes human relationship with God regarding individual responsibilities in human interactions and relationships. Please see more discussion of individual responsibilities under M04S01 through M04S21.

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From the Gospel, Living in the Image of God

Individual Responsibility in Human Interactions

Living in the Image of God M03S16

Based on Christ teaching in the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, we learn that God assigns individual responsibility to every person in every situation. Find your responsibility to understand God’s purpose for you in a given situation. Focus on performing your individual responsibility, irrespective of what others do or fail to do. He judges every person individually, independent of his judgment of other people.

Individual Responsibility in Human Interactions 10:05

We discuss Christ teaching in the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, to understand that God assigns individual responsibility to every person in every situation. Also, he judges a person based on their performance of the individual responsibility. Furthermore, his judgment of a person is independent of his judgment of others, irrespective of what others do or fail to do. He rewards each person for performing their individual responsibility and his reward for a person is independent of his reward for others.

Christ teaching in the parable (Matthew 20:1–16) uses a hypothetical event of a landowner hiring several workers for one day’s work in his vineyard. At the core of the teaching is the fact that the landowner expectation of each worker was different depending on the time of day he hired the worker. This fact conveys an aspect of human relationship with God: that God’s expectation of each person in a given event is independent and could differ from his expectation of others. Furthermore, he judges each person individually and independent of what others do or fail to do.

We discuss the parable to understand the message. Also, we discuss a passage from Paul’s letter to the Romans, where he applies the principle to describe the individual responsibility for peace.

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