Friendship as recognition

I'm (finishing after a long hiatus) reading NT Wright's "Evil and the Justice of God." A phenomenal work as I remember it, and it's already yielding interesting insights in the second sitting. In perhaps a throwaway line, Wright mentions that the righteous are always waiting for God to vindicate them, and this will surely happen, but maybe only "beyond death itself" (looking toward the vindication of resurrection). Which got the cogs turning.

I believe God is omniscient and omnipotent (to use terms from systematic theology), so there is no doubt that at the resurrection, he could offhandedly say, "Arise!" and all the righteous are resurrected to life and the unrighteous to death, whatever form that takes. There's even the "Lamb's Book of Life" in case he forgets to raise a righteous one. But a focus of evangelicalism among other movements is that God loves us and knows us and knit us together in our mother's wombs (which the Bible does actually say). Perhaps resurrection to life is supposed to be far more intimate. In this case, the driver in resurrection may not be God's blind power but his love and our love in relationship. Jesus's line would then make far more sense: "I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!" (TNIV). So again, it may not be God's omnipotence or omniscience that powers that dramatic and all-encompassing scene of the resurrection. It could be the fact that he recognizes us in a very intimate way, based on how we have related to him in this age, that determines whether we get a hearty welcome or a castigation.