Justification by Faith and Final Judgment According to Works

In a previous post, I addressed a popular interpretation of the Protestant principle of sola scriptura (“Scripture alone”), arguing that Protestants still must acknowledge church tradition to be to some extent authoritative, even if Scripture is their highest theological authority.  In this post, I will address a popular interpretation of the Protestant principle of sola fide (“faith alone”).  Many Protestants understand the principle of “faith alone” to mean that, since we are saved purely on the basis of faith alone, good works are completely irrelevant to our salvation.  However, this idea does not line up with the teachings of the New Testament.

Jesus and the Final Judgment

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells His disciples about the future Final Judgment, when He, the Son of Man, will judge all the nations, separating the “sheep” from the “goats” (25:31-46).  To the sheep, He will say, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.  For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.” (vv. 34-36).  To the goats, He will say, “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.  For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.” (vv. 41-43).  Jesus concludes, “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” (v. 46). 

Nowhere in this passage does Jesus mention faith in Him as the basis by which people will be acquitted or condemned in the Final Judgment.  Instead, Jesus is very clear that people will be acquitted or condemned in the Final Judgment on the basis of their actions, what they have done for “the least of these.”  A typical Protestant way to read this passage is to say, “Yes, Jesus says here that the Final Judgment will be according to works, but we all know that what will really happen is that, after people are judged according to their works, Jesus will stand up and intercede for those who have faith in Him, and those are the people who will be acquitted.”  However, such a way of reading the text is illegitimate special pleading.  If we want to take God’s word seriously, we must base our theology on what the whole of Scripture says, rather than reading a theological idea into the text and using that to ignore what the text itself is actually saying: the Final Judgment will be according to works.

This passage is not an isolated, atypical teaching among the teachings of Jesus.  Just prior to this, Jesus warned His disciples to make sure to be ready for His coming (24:36-51).  “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time?  It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns. . . But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, ‘My master is staying away a long time,’ and he then begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards. . . He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (vv. 45-6, 48-49, 51).  Again, Jesus here clearly indicates that the Final Judgment will be according to works, whether His servants are faithful, wise, and obedient, or whether they act wickedly.  Many other teachings of Jesus express this same idea.

Earlier in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells His disciples plainly, “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father in heaven.  Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’  Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness!’ (7:21-23).  In other words, not everyone who makes a profession of faith in Jesus as Lord will be justified in the Final Judgment; those who are obedient to God’s will and do good works will be acquitted, while those who are disobedient and do evil works will be condemned.

Paul and the Final Judgment

It is the apostle Paul, of course, who teaches that Christians are justified before God “by faith” rather than by “the works of the law” (Rom 3:28; Gal 2:16, 3:24).^[1]It should be noted that Paul’s teaching about justification by faith rather than the works of the law appears in the context of his discussion of the inclusion of the Gentiles in the church.  The … Continue reading  But when Paul writes that Christians are justified by faith rather than by the works of the law, he does not at all mean that good or evil works are irrelevant to our salvation, and that Christians can just unrepentantly live lives of sin and still be saved, as long as they have the right beliefs.  We can see this very clearly in numerous passages of Paul’s epistles.  In I Corinthians, Paul writes, “Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God” (6: 9-10).  In Galatians, Paul writes, “The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God” (5:19-21). In Ephesians, Paul writes, “For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a person is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.  Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient” (5: 5-6).  It is the clear and consistent teaching of the apostle Paul that those who do evil works will not receive salvation (inheritance in God’s Kingdom) on the last day.

Just like Jesus, the apostle Paul teaches that the Final Judgment will be according to works.  In 2 Corinthians, he writes, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad” (5:10).  It is impossible to read carefully everything the apostle Paul wrote and to conclude that he believed good and evil works were irrelevant to our salvation.  When Paul wrote that Christians are justified by faith rather than by the works of the law, he did not at all mean that people can be saved by just believing in Jesus and then continuing on living a life of sin.  Paul clearly believed that repentance from sin, obedience to God, and faithfulness to the Lord Jesus Christ were absolutely essential to our salvation.

Justification by Faith and Final Judgment According to Works in the New Testament

Other New Testament authors align with Jesus and Paul on the issue of the essential role of good works in our future salvation.  James writes, “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? . . . A person is justified by what they do and not by faith alone” (2:14-26).  In 1 John, John repeatedly teaches that we can know who is truly a child of God by whether they keep God’s commands (2:3-4, 3:21-24, 5:1-4).  In his description of the Final Judgment in Revelation, John writes, “Each person was judged according to what they had done” (20:11-15).  

So what are we to say about the teaching of the New Testament that we are justified by faith, and that the Final Judgment is according to works?  Is the New Testament self-contradictory?  Or should we believe that good works are something we add to our faith in order to merit our salvation?

The New Testament is not self-contradictory, nor does it teach that we must earn our salvation by building up enough merit with our good works.  What it does teach is this: Christians are justified in the present by faith in Jesus.  We do not become accepted as children of God by doing good works and earning our way in; we are accepted as God’s children and justified simply by faith in Jesus.  Once this happens, if we truly have become children of God, God’s grace then transforms us, so that we turn from doing evil works and turn to doing good works; this is the process of sanctification.  In the future Final Judgment, those who are truly children of God will be judged to be righteous according to their works because God’s grace has transformed them and made them righteous.  

The corollary of this is that those who unrepentantly live lives of evil works rather than good works demonstrate that they are not truly Christians, children of God.  They may claim to have faith in Jesus, but their “faith” is obviously a bogus faith rather than a true, saving faith.  Such hypocrites will be condemned in the Final Judgment according to their works.  

In summary, Christians are saved by grace alone.  When they become Christians, they are justified in the present by faith, not works.  They are then transformed by God’s grace.  And, if they are genuinely children of God, in the future Final Judgment they will be judged as righteous according to their works and receive their inheritance in the Kingdom of God.