“but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile,”
1 Peter 1:15-17 ESV
Phillips renders this verse:
“Ye shall be holy; for I am holy. If you pray to a Father who judges men by their actions without the slightest favoritism, then you should spend the time of your stay here on earth with reverent fear.”
There’s a clear logic to all this that’s not hidden in the New Testament. It runs through many of the Lord’s parables. For example, He tells us the story of a rich man in Luke 12 who is rich, but not unto God. Like many Americans today, the rich man builds security for his future and declares everything “mine” and his entire thought process is concerned with his own wellbeing. Jesus calls him a fool. Suddenly, when he is at peace and sure of his security through his wealth, his “soul is required of him.”
Indeed, he’s called to give an account.
The atheist and false believer follows the logic of right now. In Psalm 10 we read about the psychology of the atheist. They brag (v. 3) and arrogantly prey upon those who are weak before them (v. 2). They think there is no God because their personal logic demands it. Why? Because they are proud and their own god (v. 4). They reject and suppress the truth that there will be accountability someday (v. 5-6).
Thus it is that the holy Scriptures lays out the great antithesis between worldviews. All non-Christian ideology purports either no judgment before the holy God or, and this is an important distinction, one through which God can be manipulated through one’s works. False belief consists, therefore, of the two extremes of complete rejection of God’s moral law or a perverted twisting of it into a self-righteous and self-saving pretzel. The thing is, though, both of these approaches are false legalism.
It’s surprising to think that your garden variety Jehovah Witness or Mormon has principled conviction in common with an antinomian atheist but they do indeed. At the bottom of it is a legalism that rejects God’s righteousness. Sure, the latter is more self-destructive and shot through with venereal disease, abortion, substance abuse, and personal chaos, but it shares with the former the arrogance of self-righteousness. And self-righteousness always rejects God’s righteousness.
Both the ardent atheist and the twisted church legalist think that they’re fit to judge right and wrong on their own terms. This is why the modern Neo-Marxist left is so morally strident! It’s easy to miss, isn’t it? Though they reject the Bible and absolute morality, they nevertheless contend for issues on the most strict moral grounds. A woman’s right to have an abortion is sacred, they say! It’s absolutely wrong if you refuse to support giving life altering drugs, or surgery, to children under the guise of transgender health care! You must comply with the modern left or else you are an evil person. They even have speech codes – that is, their own blasphemy laws. You can’t call people the wrong pronoun. You must call illegal immigrants “migrants” or “undocumented” or things like that.
The churchy legalist, on the other hand, sets up an elaborate system of their favorite law keeping. You must be baptized like this or that. You must not use this or that word. You must go to church twice on Sunday and once on Wednesday. You can’t go shopping on Sunday. You can’t drink or dance. You can’t wear shorts to church. And you must tithe this or that. You must fast. Legalism is a bunch of stuff you could and/or ought to do in love, freely out of your own Spirit-prompted heart, made into a host of loveless, lifeless, Spiritless rules.
To all that the Scripture says:
“Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”
Romans 10:1-4 ESV
Note that all forms of non-Christian soteriology (doctrine of salvation) is at the end of the day works based. But the problem of a works based religion is far worse than we tend to believe. We like to think that it’s just someone who really takes holiness seriously, but that’s an utter deception because such rejects the righteousness of God! Worse still, all legalistic schemes – atheistic or religious – call God a liar.
“For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”
Romans 3:20-22, 24-26 ESV
You see, the brutal fact of sin is that it’s self-obsessed, self-justifying, pride that insists that sin isn’t so bad as God says it is. Furthermore, following this line of logic, it must insist that God isn’t quite so righteous as He is.
“Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.”
Romans 3:27-28 ESV
Let’s go back to the beginning of this lesson. Since we’re saved by faith and faith alone, not works, we’re to live in the resplendent light of this, not dead works or sloppy sin. The fact of our justification by faith alone leads invariably to our sanctification – that is, progressive personal holiness. Why? Because we know that we’ve been redeemed by Him who died for us. The knowledge of the horror of sin becomes more and more evident to the one who progressively understands the true holiness of the God who saves us. And it’s this God, our Father, who will judge us. Yes, we will be judged by Him!
While there is no condemnation for us who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1), there will be a “Bema Seat” judgment or, as some call it, the Judgment Seat of Christ in which believers will have their conduct and motives evaluated by Christ, not for salvation, but reward. Again, this is not the Great White Throne judgment and the believer’s salvation is not in question. It is, rather, a personal accounting of our conduct and underlying motives by the One who saves us (Romans 14:10-12; 2 Corinthians 5:10). As we previously pointed out, Jesus spoke often of this in His parables (see Luke 19:11-26).
Again, we declare boldly that in Christ there is no condemnation! Have no fear of being eternally lost (John 5:24; Romans 8:1). The “bema seat” is not a time to punish sin or else the cross was in vain! It is, however, a place of serious reckoning in which the Lord will give His people perfect and personal attention to the now hidden details of their lives. A bema was a raised platform upon which judges sat to view the ancient athletic games. The idea was to make sure that the contestants competed fairly, following the rules, and present rewards. This is what Peter is referring to here in today’s passage. It appears in more detail here:
“Each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.” (1 Corinthians 3:10b-15)
It’s to this end that we’re encouraged…and warned. The cross of Jesus Christ doesn’t save to sloppy and disrespectful living! It saves to love, faith, and gratitude in the Lord. It saves to humble sanctification and the progressive victory over personal sin, inspired and infused as it is by the Holy Spirit. The idea of crowns and rewards is presented throughout the New Testament (2 Timothy 2:5; 4:8; James 1:12; 1 Peter 5:4; Revelation 2:10). We’re told to live in faith (Romans 14:23) and to follow Him in all things, in the Word, through prayer and worship and work. We’re told to present our entire lives as a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1-2) to Him who saved and is saving us even at this moment.
This is the logic of Scripture. This is the pure and wonderful truth of Jesus Christ, the Holy One of God, the Savior and leader of our souls.
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