Grace Is Free
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. 2 Corinthians 5:10 NASB
According to what he has done – I guess Paul was mistaken. He doesn’t sound very much like a Christian in this verse. He sounds like a “works righteousness” Jew, doesn’t he? Paul writes that each of us will have to account for our deeds and we will be recompensed accordingly. Whatever happened to grace? Where’s the “Get Out of Jail Free” card? I thought that once we were forgiven, we got a pass on judgment. Apparently Paul didn’t read Martin Luther.
Oh, don’t tell me that this is only about unconfessed sins. Or that what Paul really means is that we will be rewarded for our behavior as Christians but our pre-conversion behaviors will be disregarded (Jesus will vouch for us). Use all the theological gymnastics you wish, but it seems as if Paul is being very Jewish here. He does not view grace the way we have typically been taught.
Perhaps some contemporary rabbis can help us see this striking difference.
“Raba said: At the final judgment we are asked: Were you honest in business? Did you set aside time for learning? Did you look beneath the surface? Did you ponder the inner meaning of what you saw? Did you live with hope?”[1]
“We are not punished for our sins but by them.”[2]
“Only an existence that is not content with the mere fact of existence can have any value.”[3]
These remarks sound a lot more like Paul, don’t they? The Jewish (and biblical) focus is on here and now, not heavenly rewards in the by-and-by. Deeds are what matters. Torah is for this world, not the next. Judgment is about accountability and accountability is the basis of ethical behavior. When we sign up for the Kingdom, we volunteer to live accountably. History demonstrates that God held Israel accountable. Why do you think He won’t hold us accountable? Grace? Baloney! Grace isn’t a free pass. Grace is the fact that God even cares what happens and makes a way for us to return. We’re not riding an escalator to heaven. On this stairway, we have to climb.
Topical Index: grace, forgiveness, righteousness, judgment, 2 Corinthians 5:10
[1] Chaim Stern (ed.), Gates of Forgiveness, Central conference of American Rabbis, 1993, p. 9. [2] Ibid., p. 11. [3] Ibid., p. 12.
Millions of Christians are being set up for a nasty surprise.
I agree!
– Your good deeds may keep you out of the fire but will not ensure admittance into the Kingdom.
– You bad deeds will ensure inclusion in the process of judgement but may not necessarily get you chucked into the outer darkness.
Deeds v. Grace is a GCC (Greek confused Christian) error comparing “tuesday” with “apple pie”.
The “called” have never been under grace (Grace – courteous good will) but if it was not for mercy (Mercy – compassion or forgiveness shown towards someone whom it is within one’s power to punish or harm), all human life would have been wiped out 5000 years ago.
Our continuing existence is dependent on HESED (loving-kindness – act of tenderness and consideration towards others).
Skip…when you said, “Paul does view grace the way we have typically been taught,” did you mean to say he DOESN’T?
Yes, of course. Thanks. I will fix that.
Grace really is free in that I cannot EARN it, but it cost heaven everything it had to offer it to us. Likewise, because love cannot shove grace down anybody’s throat, it waits for us to clear the runway for it. We have to open the hand of faith – become vulnerable to grace – before we can receive it. A fist tightly closed around anything AT ALL negates the exchange.
On the other hand, grace costs us everything we DON’T have: it costs us all our filthy rags of self-righteousness; all of our sin (through repentance for it); our own self-sufficiency; affections; unforgiveness and bitterness; all our needs and desires; all of the nothing that is the “dead in trespasses and sins” me, laid on the altar of sacrifice, as He lay on it for me. Heaven, through some sort of vicarious accounting, seems to think this an even exchange – “katallage” (Greek madeup word for ‘atonement’, Rom. 5:11), for that is what is required of us to “buy” the wares of heaven. No, grace is not free at all, but I think I know what you mean, with your tongue in your cheek.
To change the subject, one big reason I think we have this so confused is that all false religion teaches that there is some work required of us to ‘pay’ for sin: to ‘deserve’ justification (which is where we find the act of grace). Justification (through grace) is by no means sanctification (which is where we find the good works essential to exercise the life and freedom grace (forgiveness) returns us TO). Two very different modes of action.
For example, all false religion teaches some form of works to EARN favor (or forgiveness), but the instant you do that, grace is no longer grace! Likewise, all false religion teaches some form of ‘payment’ for sin as the dialectic corollary to that work equation. There is NO SAVIOUR in any false religion; we find a god who either forgives on a whim, or a god who forgives on the other side of punishment, or a self-god who is busy pulling itself up by its own bootstraps. Grace, if you see it at all in these religion systems, consists of some form of divorcing justice from grace, or, “unmerited favor”. In false religion, there can be no justice OR grace because they both require the ground of each other to work properly, but, again, because of our stuck position, that requires a Saviour, which no false religion offers.
. In all false religion, there is some sort of movement we have to make toward God BEFORE we get His grace. Justification (forgiveness and reconciliation) is a 100% movement of God toward us when the only thing required of us to receive it is our faith ALONE. No false religion offers faith by itself to activate God’s full forgiveness AND atonement AND payment for sin. In false religion, then, is where we really find that grace is not free. But, we are talking about justification only when we say that.
Enter sanctification. After we repent and clear the deck, the righteousness that heaven offers is available; we get to enjoy love poured through us with a new heart that beats with heaven’s heart (my will done as His will is done – in tandem), but this can only happen in the areas of my life that repentance for the sin that was already there has been washed away. That does not happen in my sleep! That happens repentance by repentance. Repentance, then, is the ‘work’ required of me, but that, too, is a gift of grace!
I can only do good when I quit doing bad. Goodness (which is God’s love acted through me) can only happen when my will has been joined (yoked) with His. This will only be found on the OTHER side of grace, which faith alone can provide us poor sheep stuck on our cliffs; frozen by sin in this game of freeze tag. No movement toward grace possible; my Saviour must do it all. Praise YHVH my Salvation: He has!
It seems to me that Paul could possibly doing commentary on these verses that I just read (again)
Ezekiel 18:21-31, 33:12-20
Most of the evangeical world, if told these verses without scriptural acknowledgment would say with Israel at that time, “Then the ways of the Lord are not fair!”
Great TW Skip. The blinders really have to come off to see that grace is not a “get out of jail free card”.
David, the way I see it, grace cleans the house, but leaves it empty. If we do not fill it with the works of love, then it gets seven times worse. Nature abhors a vacuum.
The Judge will judge our usefulness to the kingdom.
And He’ll also judge the things we did that were
just a waste of time.
My understanding of grace is that it is unmerited favor and TW says that grace means God, [not us], “makes a way for us to return.”
I think Skip has got this exactly correct.
When we were born we were guaranteed nothing except to die and to stay dead forever. This applied before and after Torah. Nothing about that changed with its advent. Only later did (God and) Yeshua make a way for us to be resurrected. Totally by His efforts, – it had nothing to do with Torah and us. It doesn’t matter if we follow Torah perfectly, it cannot, and will not, keep us alive forever NOR bring us back to life. But following Torah will do this. Corporately, it would make for an idyllic society in this age, and individually, it will bring reward instead of discipline in the next age.
Read Romans 11. Grace applies to Israel not because of their good works, no; they killed God’s prophets (including His Son), and yet He still did not reject them (forever) because they were the chosen. THIS is grace, – favor despite their evil works.
Rom 11:6 But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace.
ALL, including the evil, will be granted the grace of God, through a return to life through resurrection, but for some it will be to glory, and for others to a thousand years of indignation.
God has not, and will not, give up on His lost sheep. Yes, some “get it” sooner than others but God does not lack for time and patients. God will not need to ram his love down anyone’s throat because sooner or later they will willingly surrender to it because perfect love never fails.
1Ti 4:10 For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of ALL men, especially of believers.
“Believers” get it the first time round; “all men” take a lot longer.
I am curious, Daniel, how you would characterize “a thousand years of indignation” as not “ram(ming) (God’s) love down anyone’s throat”? This teaching, apparently, is really new to Christiandom, and I am still trying to get the hang of it. Also, if everybody is going to choose love anyway, then what is choice good for? On one hand, I see people blaming evil on the devil (the devil made me do it), but this just seems to be leaving the compelling force for good up to God, too. I could be wrong, but there seems to be no incentive for either party to choose now, because it is all somebody’s else’s responsibility, one way or the other.
The nation of Judah was evil before the time of the Babylonian exile and God hated their sin but did He reject them forever? No. God used Nebuchadnezzar as His tool to send them into exile for 60 years. That was love, albeit tough love but God knew that ultimately, Judah would survive and return and a lesson for all would be recorded.
Hundreds of years later, Judah went into exile for rejecting His Messiah. This time it was for 2,000 years of indignation. Would you say God has been ramming His love down their throat for this period of time? I don’t think so. (And yet neither is the lesson being learned.)
Most Jews and Christians are more concerned about this “world” than the next. Most are in the darkness. Spreading the true message of Yeshua has been a dismal failure. But that is going to change and the change is going to hurt.
God has extravagantly blessed the western world for hundreds of years but when the new age arrives and everything is taken away from them, will God be ramming His love down their throat? No.
God disciplines those He loves. The discipline is not for the sake of revenge but to correct them. Yes, the immature will obey because they fear more punishment, but the real purpose is to make them understand that obedience is good for them and for THEIR BENEFIT. With that realization they will willingly surrender to it and love the law.
But some folk are more stubborn than others and that realization may take an awfully long time, but sooner or later, it WILL dawn on them. If the law is perfect, just and good, then all rational people will eventually realize that and embrace what is best for themselves and everyone else. Why wouldn’t they?
Thank you, Dan. Could you reference this teaching to a definitive source for me? That would be helpful, because right now this sounds too much like reincarnation for me! Exactly WHICH folks are going to ultimately ‘get it’? Are they all going to be resurrected to live a thousand years, or does it just apply to those who are living then, and is no one allowed to die? If that is the case, the survival instinct is rendered moot, along with all value for life, for life is guaranteed, like a candle you can’t put out, no matter how hard you beat it. And if they do get reincarnated (which is exactly what being resurrected back into your mortal body means) and given a millennia to figure it out (and told that by the end of all that misery all of them are going to ‘get it’, no exceptions), why didn’t those long-lived folks before the Flood get it? Is Pharoah going to ‘get it’ next go round; is his heart going to get softer and softer over time then? Does hundreds of years of misery equal enlightenment (which is what Buddhism teaches)? Does this really match all those verses that imply we need to get it straight in this lifetime? What about the one that says “now is the acceptable time; now is the day of salvation” if it really isn’t? This sounds like something crafted to appeal to Buddhists! Why would any of us have a bit of incentive to work hard this go round to share the gospel, if it is inevitable anyway? Let God – I mean misery – do it.
I struggled on this too and then read the following from John MacArthur which seems to give the correct meaning of this verse;
The use of the word bad does not indicate that believers’ judgment is a judgment on sin, since all their sin has already been judged in Christ. The contrast between good and bad is not one between moral good and moral evil. Bad does not translate kakos or poneros, the words for moral evil, but phaulos, which means “worthless,” or “useless.” Richard C. Trench writes that phaulos “contemplates evil under another aspect, not so much that either of active or passive malignity, but that rather of its good-for-nothingness, the impossibility of any true gain coming forth from it” (Synonyms of the New Testament [Reprint; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983], 317). Phaulos describes those mundane things that inherently are neither of eternal value nor sinful, such as taking a walk, going shopping, taking a drive in the country, pursuing an advanced degree, moving up the corporate ladder, painting pictures, or writing poetry. Those morally neutral things will be judged when believers stand before the judgment seat of Christ. If they were done with a motive to glorify God, they will be considered good. If they were pursued for selfish interests, they will be considered bad.
The clearest definition of the difference between good and bad (worthless) things is in 1 Corinthians 3:11–15: For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work. If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.The only foundation of the Christian life is the Lord Jesus Christ (cf. 1 Peter 2:6–8),