The normal thing for us to do is to read that word judgment and immediately leap to the conclusion that he is talking about a decision. He may or he may not. Let us feed into that the other, the primary meaning of the word. So we have here the word judgment, krisis. Another translation or interpretation of this word comes out of Bullinger’s Companion Bible, and he said that word means a separating, which fits right into the process. You go through the process of evaluating and investigating, then you separate. It is especially applied in judicial proceedings.
If you have been looking at that word, you probably recognized an English word that is very similar to it—in Greek krisis, in English crisis. What does our English word crisis mean? It means a turning point in the progress of an affair or a series of events. The crisis is not the end, but a critical juncture and the affair continues on.
Judgment in Hebrews 9:27 in this sense is not a sentence but a time of decision for a person to be judged. It is a turning point in a person’s life. You can begin to see that this is fitting very well into the second resurrection. The person has gone into his grave; he has died, and then comes the crisis. What is coming? It is a turning point in his life that has occurred; it is a point in the progress of an investigation. Who is doing the investigating? God is the one who is doing the investigating.
