“Because of your hardened and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment is revealed. He will repay each one according to his works: eternal life to those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality; but wrath and anger to those who are self-seeking and disobey the truth while obeying unrighteousness.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Salvation is based on grace. If you’ve been around the church for long, you’ve probably heard that. It’s sort of one of the church’s central messages. In fact, if you’ve been around the church for very long and that’s news to you, you should probably find a new church because the one you’re at now isn’t very good. But as much as salvation is based on grace, judgment is not. Let’s talk about the basis of judgment and what it means for us.

Most people have an inherent sense that justice and judgment should be fair and impartial. Everyone should be held to the same standards regardless of any particular distinctives. There’s a reason that in at least this nation one of our early and enduring national symbols was the statue of Lady Justice wearing a blindfold.

When the foundations for our legal system were being laid, the goal was to put in place a system in which the rule of law (under God) was the highest authority in the land. And before that authority, all people were on equal footing. This was a fairly significant break from the monarchical systems of Europe where while there was technically one standard for all people, in practice, different classes were treated differently, and no one seriously expected things to work otherwise.

Human justice has always been an unequal affair. Those with resources get treated differently than those without. The American experiment has drifted closer to that ideal than pretty much any other nation, but we still fall short. This is because we are naturally biased creatures. We are essentially tribal in our thinking. We always have been. Because of this, we judge perceived members of our tribe differently than those who aren’t.

Still, in spite of all of this inequity, we nonetheless desire justice. We are drawn toward the ideal of perfect righteousness. We love telling stories when unjust situations are exposed to the great reversal that God’s kingdom so often brings, and the haves are brought low before the bar of justice while the have-nots are lifted up by the same bar to receive what is right. And the reason for this longing for something we never seem to quite manage to achieve is that we were created in the image of a God who is just. We reflect His image in our longings even when we don’t reflect it very well in our practices.

As good a thing as God’s justice is, though, it is also an uncomfortable one. I daresay it is even a scary one. If God is perfectly just all the time, then not only will He hold those around us accountable for their sins when they seem to have gotten by with injustice without consequence, but He will also hold us accountable. There is a day coming when “He will repay each one according to his works.” God’s justice will be fulfilled. Everyone will be exposed to it. All accounts will be rectified perfectly on that day.

This is not something we think about very often as followers of Jesus. We tend to focus all of our attention on the grace Jesus won for us on the cross. And that makes sense as a focal point. The grace of the Gospel is one of its most powerfully attractive aspects. For people who are broken and who know it, that promise of grace in response to faith is a sweet one indeed. Yet just because grace is available doesn’t mean that God’s justice will be ignored or otherwise set aside.

The authors of the New Testament are crystal clear that there is nonetheless a day coming when God will judge all the world for sin. It will be a day “when God’s righteous judgment is revealed.” And on that day, God’s judgment won’t be administered based on grace. It will be administered based on works. For those who “by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality,” they can expect to receive eternal life. But for those “who are self-seeking and disobey the truth while obeying unrighteousness,” they will receive nothing but wrath and anger.

Here’s the catch. According to our works (as Paul will make even more emphatically clear in chapter 3), there isn’t anyone who falls into that first category. Paul’s reminder here is specifically for the Jewish background members of his audience who thought themselves a step ahead in the face of God’s judgment because of their heritage and background. He wanted them to be especially clear on the fact that there was nothing about them that left them somehow predisposed to a lighter sentence when God’s righteous judgment is revealed. Just like everyone else, “because of your hardened and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath.”

Let’s then be as clear among ourselves as Paul wanted his audience to be: God’s judgment on the last day will be based on our works. And the standard to which we are expected to adhere will be sinless perfection. As Jesus told the crowd toward the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, “unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven.” If you think you can meet with that standard on your own, more power to you. But if you’ve violated it even once, you’re not standing on particularly sturdy ground. And given that eternity is at stake, this is something that you don’t want to think you’re set on only to discover later that you’re not. You want assurance on where you stand.

And here’s the thing: Even if you reject the standard laid out in the Scriptures, you’re not out of the woods. Paul allows for this later on in the letter. Yes, God’s expectations are all laid out in the Law of Moses, but even if someone doesn’t know anything about that standard, if they nonetheless make up their own standard that reflects it in some capacity, God is fine with using their own standard as a means of judgment. For you, there is a standard to which you do hold yourself whether that’s the Scriptures or something else. And, you don’t keep that standard consistently. No one does.

And that’s the problem. No one meets with God’s standard because no one is perfect. If someone did meet it, He’d welcome them in with open arms. He is just, after all. But no one does. No one has. Save one. Jesus. Jesus was judged just like all the rest of us will be. Except He did perfectly keep the Law. He fulfilled God’s righteous standards without failing or falling short of them a single time. This is good news for us. But exactly why it is good news is something we’re going to have to come back to another day. Paul’s taking us on a journey and we’re not there just yet. Stay tuned. The payoff here is coming.