Question: Will the fallen angels receive a judgment, and if so, what is the nature of their judgment?
Answer: We may divide the fallen angels into two categories – repentant and impenitent. The following passages imply and teach that the fallen angels will have a judgment, an opportunity, to return to harmony and fellowship with God: Our Lord by His ministry, death and resurrection preached to them implies such an opportunity (1 Peter 3: 18, 19); their being kept for the judgment of the great Day (Jude 6) (2 Peter 2: 4); the saints will judge – test, try them (1 Corinthians 6: 3); they are the “things in heaven” that in the next Age are to be given an opportunity of being made one in Christ (Ephesians 1: 10) (Colossians 1: 20); this is also implied in the fact that the Church’s example and preaching has been for their enlightenment (Ephesians 3: 8-10) (1 Corinthians 4: 9); Jesus’ death and resurrection being for the purpose of qualifying Him to be the ruler over fallen angels and men (Romans 14: 9) implies such an opportunity.
In the Gospel Age they have been undergoing a test as to whether they desire to return to harmony and fellowship with God. What they have learned from the teachings and example of Jesus and the Church has given some of them the hope of such a restoration. They have likewise learned from these that if they are to have such an opportunity they must separate themselves from Satan and his works. Some of them have been acting accordingly, doubtless amid great difficulties incidental to the opposition of the impenitent angels.
Fallen Angels Separated into Two Classes
The Scriptures assure us that now in the Epiphany the crisis of their trial is going on (2 Timothy 4: 1); for fallen angels and new creatures, never sentenced to death, are “the quick” who in the Epiphany undergo a separation as the result of their judgment crisis. By the end of the Epiphany the fallen angels will be divided into two classes: (1) the repentant, and (2) the impenitent. The latter, those who fall in the crisis of their Gospel Age test, who, during the Epiphany do not separate themselves from the evil angels, will not be given the Millennial opportunities of a return to fellowship with God. As irreformable and fully willful sinners they will be sentenced to destruction with Satan before the others enter their final probation, be imprisoned with him and finally executed at the end of the Little Season (Revelation 20: 7-9). As in the case of people now sentenced to execution, there is usually an imprisonment following the sentence and preceding its execution, so it will be with Satan and his impenitent angels.
By the terms Satan, etc. (Revelation 20: 1-3, 7-10), not only the individual Satan is meant, but also Satan, head and body – the Satan company. From this standpoint we see that both the head and body will be imprisoned during the Millennium, and after their loosing from prison and the final trial, they will be destroyed. Certainly, the individual Satan would not have sufficient time in the 40 years of the Little Season to appeal to the hearts of the 40,000,000,000 humans in the final temptation. Each one of these people would have to be appealed to very often and long during the 40 years of the Little Season; and this implies many fallen angels as the tempters; for one tempter could not have enough time to do all the necessary and sufficient tempting of such an enormous number of people. The Scriptures imply that the goat class, the devil and his angels are at about the same time cast into eternal destruction (Matthew 25: 41) (Revelation 20: 9, 10). The destruction of Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea implies the same thing, for the Egyptian horsemen, pursuing the Israelites, type wicked angels and men in the Little Season, and their destruction types the destruction of wicked angels and men at its end.
The repentant fallen angels, on the other hand, will at the end of the Epiphany be placed under Christ and the Church for their Millennial opportunities of overcoming everything sinful in them and of developing perfect love, fitting them for the heavenly society and for fellowship with God. Thus seen, their Gospel Age opportunities are for their rescue from cooperation with Satan in evil; and their Millennial Age opportunities are for their fitting unto eternal life. The details of the reformatory methods that Christ and the Church will apply for their full reformation into God’s fellowship are not revealed to us. All we know of them is that Christ and the Church will reign over them for the purpose of effecting their complete reunion with God.