The pharisees expected to be accepted based on their beliefs, but their characters were weak and judgmental, and they seem to "not practice what they preached."
This verse seems to say we should be more careful about what we do:
“And I saw a great white throne, and Him sitting on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And a place was not found for them. And I saw the dead, the small and the great, stand before God. And books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, ACCORDING TO THEIR WORKS. And the sea gave up the dead in it. And death and hell delivered up the dead in them. And each one of them was judged ACCORDING TO THEIR WORKS. And death and hell were cast into the Lake of Fire. This is the second death. And if anyone was not found having been written in the Book of Life, he was cast into the Lake of Fire” (Revelation 20:11-15).
wyomugs2016-05-14T00:00:45Z
Favorite Answer
By what we have done, NOT done, said, thought... etc. God demands absolute perfection in us, and cannot tolerate ANY sin. This is WHY we NEED Christ so much! Through HIM, we HAVE achieved that perfection in the sight of the Almighty Father.
Through him we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God. (Romans 5:2)
I don't know about you, but God judged Jesus Christ for all the crap that I've done. That's how He ended up on that cross. So I'm completely in the clear now. So when I die, I can skip the judgement part since that has already happened for me. I'll just skip my way along right into the bliss of paradise.
You know, Jesus never could specify something that the pharisees were doing wrong. I mean, he did say that they were greedy, and did give a watered down version of God's word, but because of the pharisees, the Jewish people were fundamentalists. It's because of them that Jesus was accepted at all (which was very little).
Then we have passages like Mat 15 where Jesus flips on the pharisees because they're surprised he's not washing his hands before he eats. Rather than be adult about it, Jesus tells them they're horrible leaders, and gives some wishy-washy reasons as to why. Stuff like this convinced a lot of people, including some of his disciples, that Jesus wasn't really the son of god.
So really, should you even place your trust in these judgements?
Yes, believers aren't judged for our sins because Jesus died to remove them, but we are judged by our works. Our works reveal if we really have a relationship with Jesus or not. It's not by our own effort to do good and not sin that we can do the will of God - It's by pursuing to know Him and His great love for us, and by resting in Jesus' finished work on our behalf that gives us right-standing with God...it's only through being filled with His Spirit, knowing Him and freely receiving His love, that we can freely love. Many of the Pharisees didn't believe in Jesus - didn't receive Him. That's why they couldn't practice what they preached and couldn't truly love.
Yes. We are judged by our actions. The New Testament says explicitly in James 2 that a faith without good works is a dead faith. Paul says in Romans 2-3 that it is not the hearers of the Law that are saved but the doers of the Law. So our actions and our ethical conduct is important.