As promised on the Resonance – Living from Within Podcast, the month of July is dedicated to the Judgement Day. Today, we will talk about the standard by which God will judge all humanity. The Bible gives us both the questions for the exams and the answers. In case you don’t know what righteousness is, it is simply having a right standing before God; being able to stand in the manifest presence of God blameless and spotless. It sounds simple but it’s like being able to stand in fire without having a combustible material on you. It’s that serious. Righteousness is God’s way of being and doing right. It’s first of all one’s nature, then it flows into one’s words, works and ways. This was discussed in extensive detail in Righteousness, Peace, Joy: the Kingdom of God.
The foundation of God’s Throne is Righteousness and Justice and He sits on the Mercy Seat. God’s judgement must be right and just without compromising His merciful nature. In fact, we underestimate how God’s judgement has to be both righteous and just, and how it can even co-exist with mercy. Thus, the right and just Judge gives us the grace to obtain mercy before giving out judgement. If God has to be fair in His judgement when the opportunities and outcomes of our decisions are different, that means God has created certain systems and structures that will make sure His judgement to everyone at the end of the day is both right and just. One of such mysteries is the Mystery of Witnesses. (we will discuss this next week)
Meeting the Standard of God
The only way to ascend unto the hill of the LORD is by meeting all God’s requirements from the beginning to the end of your life. Since that’s impossible for any man – for all have sinned and have fallen short of the Glory of God – God Himself became the perfect man made in the image and likeness God originally had in mind when He created us. He met the entire justice system, satisfying the requirements to seat one at the highest seat in Glory; at the right hand of the Father. Christ did not just meet the standard; Christ is the standard by which God will judge all humanity.
Adam’s sin imputed unrighteousness on all of us. If you understood the Family System of the Kingdom of God, you will realise that man was designed in such a way that he can impute their state and inheritance on their offspring. When Jesus was on the Cross, all our sins were imputed on Him using the same system. The Divine Exchange! Now, anyone who believes in Him (it’s not by force) will have the Righteousness of God imputed on Him/her. Jesus is now the 2nd Adam from whom we receive the God life.
The Righteous & Just Judgement
God never intended to judge all of us uniformly. In the parable of the talents, one received five, another two, and another one (Matthew 25:14–30). Even if the man with two gained two more, he still had less than the one who was entrusted with five. If God wanted to judge everyone strictly based on equal circumstances, He would have placed us all in the exact same families, the same countries, under the same influences, with the same gifts, and the same assignments. But He didn’t and He doesn’t need to do that. Why? Because God does not judge men by comparing them to each other. He judges all by one standard — His glorious righteousness. That standard is absolute. That standard is Christ, the Righteousness of God.
So, is it unfair? Not at all. God applies the same righteous standard to all — Christ — and judges our works based on what we did with what we were given. The question of where you will spend eternity is determined by whether you met the standard of righteousness. Those who have Jesus will be rewarded according to their good works since they will stand blameless before God. Those who don’t have Jesus will suffer consequences based on their evil works and their “good” works won’t count anymore. That’s how fair God is! You may end up in hell for a tiny error and you will be “rest assured” that you won’t suffer the same punishment as one who wholeheartedly gave themselves to error even though both of you are in hell. Understandably, those who were once saved will suffer a heavier punishment than those who were never saved.
What About My Good Works?
Here is the truth: no man on earth has ever met and will ever meet the standard except one — Jesus Christ. But here is the Good News; whoever believes in Him has that righteous record imputed to them (Romans 3:22–24). That is the grace of salvation. His righteousness becomes your qualification. Without that, your good works are disqualified at the gate. Because righteousness is the foundation upon which our good works must stand. Without it, your works — even the best of them — are tainted by sin and weighed as evil. You will be judged according to those evil works, and the full penalty of sin will be applied without mercy.
It isn’t fair that one’s good works don’t count if they don’t have Jesus? Well, even in this realm, you won’t be allowed on a plane if you don’t have a passport, regardless of your degree, calibre, awards or properties. Remember we said righteousness is first a nature then it flows into our works? If you don’t have the nature of righteousness, how can you have the works of righteousness? Psalm 16:2 explicitly says our goodness is nothing apart from God. Just as we cannot attain a righteous nature outside God, no works are counted as righteous outside of Him.
For those who have passed the standard — those in Christ — their works will be tested, rewarded, and remembered. Eternity will not only be a destination for them, but a divine reward system for what was built upon the foundation of Christ. In most religions, your good works must simply outweigh your bad. That’s a cheapened philosophy. Our God is just and right. Thus, even a single iota of dirt disqualifies you. If you have sinned, silently observed sinful actions or thought of sin in any way since you were born, you are disqualified. That’s how glorious the standard of God is. If you want to try to meet the standard without Jesus, well, I wish you the best of luck.
So in the end, Judgement Day is not a competition; it is an unveiling. God is not looking for the best among men — He is looking for those who met His standard in Christ. Righteousness allows you into the gate; works are put on the scale. Both begin and end in Christ. Without Him, even your best efforts will fall short. With Him, even the smallest cup of water given in His name will not go unrewarded. Let every man examine himself — not to earn salvation, but to build wisely upon the only sure foundation: Jesus Christ. For on that Day, the fire will test every man’s work, and only what was done in Him, through Him, and for Him will endure.
