Psalms 1:5

5 Therefore the wicked will not survive^[a] the judgment, and sinners will not be in the community of the righteous.

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Psalms 1:5 Meaning and Commentary

Psalms 1:5

Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment
Neither in temporal judgment, when God comes forth in a way of wrath and sore displeasure; for who can stand before him when he is angry? what are chaff and stubble, thorns and briers, to consuming fire? nor in the last and great day of judgment, so the Targum and Kimchi interpret the words; for that day will burn like an oven the wicked, who will be as stubble, and leave neither root nor branch, ( Malachi 4:1 ) : when the great day of the Lamb's wrath is come, who will be able to stand? ( Romans 6:16 Romans 6:17 ) ; there will be no standing for the wicked when he appears; they will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, to take their trial and hear their sentence, ( 2 Corinthians 5:10 ) ; but they shall not stand in the same place with the righteous, not at Christ's right hand, but at his left; they shall not stand with an holy confidence, with intrepidity, and without shame, as the blessed man will; they will not stand, but fall in judgment; they will not be acquitted and discharged, but be condemned to everlasting punishment, ( Matthew 25:30 ) ; and this sense the Targum on the place expresses, "the ungodly shall not be justified in the great day"; the Vulgate Latin and Septuagint versions render the words, "the ungodly shall not rise again in judgment"; from whence some have concluded there will be no resurrection of the wicked: which seems, to be the sense of Kimchi and other Jewish writers; who assert that the souls of the wicked perish with their bodies at death, and that the latter rise not, contrary to ( Ecclesiastes 12:7 ) ( Daniel 12:2 ) ; but that the wicked will, rise may be concluded from the justice of God, which requires that the bodies which have sinned should be punished; and from the general judgment of good and bad, and from the account of the punishment of hell, which will be inflicted on the body as well as on the soul: besides, the contrary doctrine is a licentious one, and is calculated to harden wicked men in their sins, and is directly repugnant to the assertions of Christ, and the Apostle Paul, ( John 5:28 John 5:29 ) ( Acts 24:15 ) ; nor has it any foundation in this text, even admitting such a version; which does not absolutely affirm that the wicked shall not rise again, but that they shall not rise again in, judgment, in the first resurrection, the resurrection of the just, and so as to be acquitted and discharged, but they shall rise to the resurrection of damnation;

nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
who are made righteous by the righteousness of Christ imputed to them, and have a work of grace and holiness wrought in them; and who, under the influence of grace, live soberly, righteously, and godly; these are the same with the blessed man, ( Psalms 1:1 ) ; and who at the day of judgment will be perfectly holy, and free from all sin; and they will be all gathered together by the holy angels; the dead saints will be raised, the living ones will be changed, and both will be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air, and will make up one general assembly and church of the firstborn; and among these, and in this assembly, there will not be a single sinner; there are now sinners in Zion, foolish virgins with the wise, chaff and tares among Christ's wheat, and wolves and goats among his sheep; but then there will be an eternal separation, and no mixing together any more.

Taken from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible