Some years ago, I was surprised and a little unsettled by a Bible verse I had read many times. I’ve been surprised and unsettled in this way many times, so often, in fact, that I have learned to see it as the preface to fresh insight and a more robust understanding. Instead of worrying that these surprises mean I’ve missed something in the past – of course I have – they leave me expectant for the future.

The particular verse that left me surprised and unsettled was Romans 2:16. Paul had been describing how a person’s own conscience will defend or accuse them on the Day of Judgment. He then located this process of defense and recrimination in time (verse 16): “This will take place on the day when God will judge men’s secrets through Jesus Christ…”

That was not what surprised me. The Bible teaches a judgment from Genesis to Revelation. We hear about it from the lips of Jesus and from the letters of Peter, Paul, the author of Hebrews, Jude, and many others. It wasn’t Paul’s description of judgment, but what he said next, that grabbed my attention. Paul wrote, “This will take place on the day when God will judge men’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.”

It struck me for the first time that Paul included the Day of Judgment as an element in his gospel—his good news. I had thought – had been led to think – of the judgment as bad news. It was the bad news that people needed to hear before they were ready for the good news. But Paul saw the Judgment as good news. How could that be?

I was afraid of the Judgment. I don’t need to search far to find things that I have said, thought, and done that exposed me as a sinner—and sometimes a fool. The idea that all that will be revealed—how could anyone speak of that as good news?

Hence, the surprise and the feeling of being unsettled. There must be, I realized, more to the Judgment than I have previously understood. The fact that Paul included it in his good news means that it must either be good in itself or it must result in something good.

I came across these words from the pastor and novelist Frederick Buechner: “God will ring down the final curtain on history, and … The judge will be Christ. In other words, the one who judges us most finally will be the one who loves us most fully.”

Yes, that is good news. But did Paul have something more than that in mind when he was writing Romans? I was coming to think so.

For years, I have spent the first hours of my morning reading the Scriptures and praying, and my habit has been to read the texts from the Daily Office in the Book of Common Prayer. That kind of reading schedule takes me through the psalms repeatedly. And guess what I found there? The idea that the judgment is good news – more than that – that the judgment is great news.

In Psalm 96, the psalmist calls creation to rejoice. “Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let the sea resound, and all that is in it; let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them. Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy; they will sing before the Lord, for he comes…”

Why is this coming something to celebrate? Why should the earth be so jubilant? Because “he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his truth.” Creation eagerly awaits that judgment.

There is something very similar in Psalm 98. There, the entire creation – inanimate and animate, humans and other animals, seas and mountains – sing, clap, and shout for joy because, once again, YHWH comes to judge the earth.

Judgment is seen as the occasion for setting everything right. I am sure that humans, at least, will not rejoice at the Judgment because they will be proved right, but rather because they will be put right. All that is wrong – physically, emotionally, spiritually, relationally – will be set right. Death will be destroyed. The old order of things – dominated as it has been by the Second Law of Thermodynamics with its repetitive story of failure and corruption – will pass away. Reconciliation, between God and man, man and man, God and creation, man and creation, even creation and creation will be complete.

The entire creation celebrates the coming of judgment, knowing that afterward the wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, and humans will finally take dominion over the earth. Instead of torturing it with toxins and destroying its creatures for personal gain, humans will rule it with love and faithfulness.

This fresh insight into judgment led me to a broader understanding of the gospel. It is not the good news of something I might do (accept Jesus into my heart) so that I might avoid hell and receive a ticket to heaven (as important as that is). It is the good news of something God has already done through Jesus Christ to bring a cosmic end to evil and set all things right. In Colossians 1:15-23 we find that all things were created by and for Jesus Christ, all things are sustained by him, and all things have been reconciled to God by him. All things. The scope of what God has accomplished through Jesus is breathtaking.

This isn’t just about me or even you. The gospel’s scope takes in all creation, and it includes the Judgment—the kick-off event of abundant life and everlasting joy for everyone and everything that belongs to God.

When we turn the gospel into a sales pitch to individuals rather than an announcement of what God has accomplished and will accomplish through Jesus, we give people a gospel they might accept (which is crucial) but will probably not celebrate (which is also crucial). They need to see, as Paul makes clear in Colossians, that Jesus is good news for the world – for the universe – and that the good news includes them (Colossians 1:21-23).

Perhaps we need to turn our evangelism presentations backwards, as Paul did in Colossians, and start with Jesus’s victory rather than our sinfulness (as is usually done). Then, like Paul, we need to paint a picture of universal deliverance, the reconciliation of all things in heaven and on earth. Then, after we have filled out this cosmic vision (Romans 8:18-23 is perfect for this), we can tell people that they too (Colossians 1:21-23) qualify for reconciliation. They can be renewed, restored, complete – it’s their choice. They can take part in “the renewal of all things” (Matthew 19:28, the palingenesis – creation again).  They can trust Jesus, the Savior of souls and the Restorer/Beautifier/Reconciler of all things in heaven and on earth, and confess him as Lord.