We Protestants get nervous when talking about water and works. Let someone quote the Apostle Peter, “baptism now saves you” (1Pt 3.21) and you might be accused of being Roman Catholic or told why baptism in that passage is not baptism and how it doesn’t save you. We get a little nervous around water.
We become equally antsy when someone brings up those pesky passages in the Bible about a final judgment according to works. James has that irritating sentence, “You see that a person is justified¬ [judged to be righteous] by works and not by faith alone” (Jms 2.24). Solomon says that God will bring every deed into judgment, every secret thing, whether good or evil (Eccl 12.14). Jesus joins this party by saying that those who have done good will participate in the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil in the resurrection of judgment (Jn 5.29). He also speaks about how he will separate his sheep from the goats based on the deeds of mercy (Mt 25.31-46). Paul jumps in here by saying that the doers of the Law will be justified (Rom 2.13) and that we will all appear before the judgment seat of Christ to receive what is due for what we have done in our bodies, whether good or evil (2Cor 5.10). Finally, the judgment scene in Revelation 20.11-15 describes judgment based on what the person has done. And this is only a smattering of passages that speak of this reality. Is it just me, or is it getting difficult to breathe in here?
What do we do with all of this? We are people of the book. Sola Scriptura! But we may think that the Bible is messing around with Sola Fide, so we explain why none of these passages is really dealing with a final judgment according to works … even though that is exactly what they are all saying. There is a way to understand all of this that doesn’t do violence to Sola Scriptura or Sola Fide.
When God created man, he gave him a mission. First and foremost, that mission required absolute loyalty to or faith in God; or, as Solomon and others call it, “the fear of the Lord.” Without this faith, this fear of the Lord, it is impossible to please God (Heb 11.6), but this faith is not a tip of your intellectual hat to God. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom (Pr. 1.7; 9.10; Psa 111.10). With this knowledge and wisdom, man is called to build and arrange the world so that it reflects God’s own life in every way. This mission involves arranging the interior of one’s personal life (i.e., the heart) as well as developing and ordering complex cities and nations. Each individual has a part to play in this worldwide mission. Whatever God gives you, whether it is your own body, a household, a business, or any other responsibility, you have the responsibility to bring that into good order.
God gives you the mission, leaves, and then comes back again to inspect, evaluate, and judge whether or not you have been faithful. That’s what he did with the first man and woman. That’s what Jesus describes in his parable of the master and servants in Matthew 25. If you have been faithful in your mission, you hear “Well done!” and enter the joy of your Lord. If you have been unfaithful, you are condemned as a wicked servant and cast into outer darkness.
What is God looking for? What does he require? Faithfulness (1Cor 4.2). Faithfulness to his covenant is righteousness. Covenant faithfulness since the fall of man is not sinlessness. We are all sinners, but God makes provision in his covenant for the cleansing of our sins in Christ Jesus so that united to him by faith we are counted sinless. Trusting that provision is fundamental to being righteous. It is impossible to be righteous apart from union with Christ by faith.
But union with Christ Jesus is not limited to trusting his provision for sin. You are joining him in his mission, which is God’s original mission for man. Because you have been released from the power of sin through forgiveness, you are in a position to arrange your own life and whatever God places under your authority into the order that God expects. The faith that trusts God’s provision in Christ is the same faith that joins him in his agenda for your individual life and the world. There is no parsing out different “faiths” for different aspects of salvation. There is a faith that saves and a faith that doesn’t.
You and I, at our deaths, will stand before the Judge to give an account for the work he gave us to do (Heb 9.27). If you have been loyal to God, you will hear, “Well done! Enter the joy of your Lord!” If you haven’t been loyal to God, you will be condemned as a wicked servant and cast into outer darkness.
