Contemporary fallacy: The "saved" do not come into judgment.

Answer of Inspiration: Ecclesiastes 3:17. God will judge the righteous and the wicked.

Consider Ecclesiastes ch. 3. The first verses of the chapter forcefully present the reality of order in God's creation; that in His order, all of the modes that are possible have their position in a life's scheme (3:1-8); yet in the end, God's universe is moral and He will require an accounting (3:15: "God requireth that which is past"), or "God seeks out/inquires/investigates [ye-vaq-qeysh] what is pursued," or "that which has happened" [el nir-daf]. God rules over all providences (3:11, 14).

But as Solomon looked, he considered the place of justice, and there he saw wickedness. Where righteousness ought to have been exalted, he looked and saw evil (3:16). He saw that where there ought to have been fairness and goodness in the world, something was very wrong. In God's world, evil is present! In case we want to limit righteousness to something external from the person, the author of Ecclesiastes here makes plain a key element of righteousness by placing it in a parallel position to justice. Justice and righteousness go together, and are impossible without one another.

He looked, and saw that this was wrong. But knowing that everything has its place under heaven's superintendence, and that God will investigate and insist upon individual moral accountability for all of one's actions, he realized that "God shall judge the righteous and the wicked" (3:17). Notice that it is plainly indicated that God will judge ("will judge" is [yish-pot], imperfect, meaning incomplete action) both those whose lives are characterized by wickedness, and those whose lives are characterized by righteousness.

It is on this basis that the author of Ecclesiastes desires that God will make apparent to people their mortality ("that they themselves are like beasts" margin reading), but different (morally accountable and potentially receiving eternal life) 3:11, 21. He needs to focus on living a godly life now.

But some will quote John 5:24 and say that the Christian "will not come into condemnation/judgment, but is passed from death unto life." But let's be Biblical. Let's take all of 5:24: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death to life." Jesus assures the hearer that those who hear His word (obey His commands), and believe in Jesus' sender (the Father), possesses everlasting life. Such a one will not be condemned, but "is passed" from death to life."

There are several things to notice here. First, Jesus outlines important conditions preceding a passage from death to life. The first is obedience, "hearing" Jesus' word. For the Hebrew mind, to "hear" is to "do" also. That's why in Romans 2:13 Paul writes "For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified." That is, just hearing what God's will is doesn't save anyone, doesn't make anyone just. It is a very false understanding of justification that proposes that someone is made actually just by hearing what heaven commands. It is not being in the presence of sound waves, but receiving the power of the Holy Spirit to do God's will that is operative in the person who will truly be justified. This is why Paul points out again in Galatians 5:6 that what really makes the difference is "faith which worketh by love."

Look at a few texts showing how hearing means obeying:

"So I spake unto you; and ye would not hear, but rebelled against the commandment of the Lord, and went presumptuously up into the hill." Deuteronomy 1:21.

"Go though near, and hear all that the Lord our God shall say: and speak thou unto us all that the Lord our God shall speak unto thee; and we will hear it and do it." Deuteronomy 5:27

"Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it..." Deuteronomy 6:3

"Because thine heart was tender, and thou didst humble thyself before God, when thou heardest His words against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof, and humbledst thyself before Me, and didst rend thy clothes and weep before Me; I have even heard thee also, saith the Lord." 2 Chronicles 34:27

"If I regard iniquity on my heart, the Lord will not hear me" Psalm 66:18

"Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip" Hebrews 2:1

So many more texts could be given. But let's add just one more. Consider what Isaiah writes "The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: He wakeneth morning by morning, He wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned" Isaiah 50:4. He is not saying merely that when he wakes up, God awakens his ear to hear like a scholar, but that God renews his capacity to obey each morning. He awakens us ready to hear and follow Him through the day in obedience and pleasant fellowship.

But obeying is linked with believing in the Father who sent Jesus (John 5:24). Obedience to God was never meant to occur outside of a trusting relationship of faith. See, if we will only try to be open to what our Father is sharing with us, we'll see precious things in the Word of God and leave behind our loophole-looking-for.

Notice that on fulfillment of these conditions, obedience and faith, one has eternal life, he has passed from death to life. And once we have eternal life, and have made the passage, can we lose it? No. But we can still cast it away. How? By passing back over into death again, by retreating from faith and by disobeying God.

The statement in the text is that one who has eternal life "shall not come into condemnation" (or some translations, "judgment"). The Greek word [krisis] often means to separate, but in John's writings, this word often takes on the distinctive meaning of "to condemn."(See Thayer's Lexicon, p. 362). Verse 29 helps make certain that judgment in v. 24 has the distinctive Johannine condemnatory overtone. That is, very simply, the person who obeys God, and an operative faith in the Father and the Son will not pass into condemnation. This is very different from asserting that the Christian will not be judged in sense of evaluation. Indeed, how will each person's case be fairly considered unless an evaluation of them is made?

Again, are God's people just fakes, persons granted only an "imputed" righteousness? That is, are God's people only nice on paper, or are they really authentically that way? Are they really just people; people whose lives exhibit justice? Because righteousness and justice go together, and you can't have one without the other. And recall that "God shall judge the righteous and the wicked" Ecclesiastes 3:17.

1 John 3:14 gives us a means of personally testing our experience: "We know that we have passed from death into life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death." This is not talking of a pretend loving of our brother, but an actual love for our brothers and sisters manifested "because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us" Romans 5:5. The righteousness and justice of God's people is as real as the love of God's people. Because this is true, they can pass through God's evaluation and glorify Him.

Paul didn't leave anyone out when he wrote by the Spirit "For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that everyone may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad" (2 Corinthians 5:10). "All" must appear, that "everyone" may receive "whether it be good or bad." If only those who have done "bad" are judged, then who will receive "good?" Only the righteous do good that is remembered, (Ezekiel 33:12, 18) and so this can only have reference to the righteous being judged or evaluated as well.

There is another text that is commonly brought forward to prove that Christians somehow are exempt from judgment: Romans 8:1: "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Some modern translations leave out the condition given in the last part of the verse, but it still shows up in 8:4, so we may consider it a legitimate condition. Notice that those uncondemned are those "which are in Christ Jesus." Verse four shows that the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in those who live by the Spirit.

If there was anything that was in Jesus, it was His Father's law. That law is the very transcript of His character, the Father's character, and the Spirit's character. And if He has the Father's law in His heart, and He is permitted to dwell in my heart, then I will also have the law in my heart, and I will be living in obedience to it just as Jesus did. He did promise, after all, that in the new covenant He would put His "laws into their hearts, and in their minds I will write them" (Hebrews 10:16). When that law is written there, deeply inscribed by daily discipleship and obedience-when God's people are thoroughly settled into the truth both intellectually and spiritually-then the judgment will be a joy to us, although a serious experience. Because by the power of God, our passage through His judgment will bring glory to Him. Yes, Solomon looked inthe palce of righteousness and the place of judgment; he looked at the world and saw wickedness, and he knew that God wasn't finished with the great controversy between good and evil yet. He knew that "God shall judge the righteous and the wicked" (Ecclesiastes 3:17). He knew that there is a time for every purpose and every work, and that when heaven is finished, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that the lordship of Jesus changed them, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:9-11).

Last Modified 15 March 2000