Will Believers Be Called Into Judgment For Their Sins?

"If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?" - Psalm 130:3

The question is often raised, "Will believers be called into judgment for their sins; or will God judge his elect for their sins and failures, committed after they were saved, and expose them in the day of judgment?"

The only reason that question is ever raised is because many try to retain threats and fears like those associated with the Roman doctrine of purgatory, by which they hope to hold over God's saints the whip and terror of the law.

Let me be emphatically clear. There is absolutely no sense in which those who trust the Lord Jesus Christ shall ever be made to pay for their sins. Here are seven reasons why that statement must be so.

1. Our sins were imputed to Christ. They cannot and shall not be imputed to us again (Rom. 4:8). God declares that he sees no sin in his people (Num. 23:21; Jer. 50:20). If he did, we could not stand before him.

2. Christ paid our debt to God's law and justice (Gal. 3:13). Justice cannot demand that the same debt be paid twice, by our Surety and by us. God will never require us to pay.

3. God who has blotted out our transgressions will never write them against us again (Isa. 43:25). Because he has blotted them out of the record book, he does not and cannot remember them. Law cannot remember a crime that is not on the books.

4. He who covered our sins will never uncover them. As the blood of the paschal lamb sprinkled on the mercy-seat ceremonially covered the sins of Israel, represented in the broken law within the ark, so the blood of Christ completely covers (by atonement) our sins from the eye of omniscient justice (Rom. 5:10-11).

5. The perfect righteousness of Christ has been imputed to us. We are now made to be the very righteousness of God in him. Just as our sins became his by imputation, his righteousness is ours by imputation (2 Cor. 5:21).

6. On the day of judgment, God's elect are never represented as having done any evil, but only good (Matt. 25:31-40). Christ’s perfect obedience is ours. His righteousness is ours. We shall be justly rewarded with eternal life because in him we deserve it (Heb. 9:12).

7. The day of judgment will be a day of glory and bliss for Christ and his people, not a day of mourning and sorrow. It will be a marriage supper, not a marriage split. Christ will glory in his Church (Eph. 5:25-27; Jude 24-25). The triune God will display the glory of his grace in us (Eph. 2:7). We will glory in our God (Rev. 19:6-7).

“THE BOOKS” Revelation 20:12

In the figurative language of Holy Scripture God is often represented as writing and keeping books. And according to these books we all shall be judged. What are the books?

The Book of Divine Omniscience (Mal. 3:5)

Again, I remind you that the all-knowing God does not need record books to remember anything. He uses such language only to accommodate our puny brains. Because we all know what ledger books are, records of facts, God uses such language to speak of the facts upon which judgment is based. Nothing is hidden from omniscience. Nothing is forgotten by omniscience.

The Book of Divine Remembrance (Mal. 3:16)

Our great God will never forget his own. He will never forget to be merciful. He will not forget your work of faith and labor of love, faith and love which he has accepted through the merits of Christ’s perfect faith, perfect love, perfect obedience, and perfect sacrifice.

The Book of Creation (Rom. 1:18-20)

In the book of creation the Lord God has stamped his image upon everything, so that all men are without excuse before him. Even the heavens declare the glory of God.

The Book of God's Providence (Rom. 2:4-5)

In providence all are given space for repentance. Those who despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and long-suffering, with hard, impenitent hearts, treasure up for themselves wrath against the day of God’s righteous wrath and judgment.

The Book of God's Holy Law (Rom. 2:12)

This book of the law has two tables. The first table contains all the sins of men against God (Ex. 20:3-11). The second table contains all the sins of men against one another (Ex. 20:12-17). It demands perfection, the perfection of righteousness which Christ alone has given, and Christ alone could give.

The Book of the Gospel (Rom. 2:16)

The gospel, too, will be a book opened on judgment day. All who have heard and despised the message of redemption and grace in Christ shall have the greater condemnation (Matt. 11:20-24).

The Book of Conscience (Rom. 2:15)

The Lord God has even inscribed his holy law upon every man’s conscience. It may be suppressed now; but in that great and terrible day of wrath and judgment, the unbeliever’s own conscience will cry out for his everlasting damnation, even as he curses God with his impenitent heart forever.

Don Fortner