Audio Download

The Two Works of Scripture, Part 3: The Judgment of Works

[Study Aired May 5, 2026]

Recap and Orientation

Parts 1 and 2 have established the two categories of works and the passage from one to the other. The works of the natural order — dead works produced by the Adamic nature, whether profane, moral, or religious — cannot justify because they proceed from a source in which the quickening spirit has not yet come. The works wrought in God — the works of the spiritual order produced through the indwelling Spirit — cannot be manufactured by human effort but must be received in the Worker who takes up residence in the believer. The work of God is believing; the fruit of faith is works wrought in God; the apparent tension between Paul and James dissolves when we recognize two kinds of works rather than two competing bases of salvation.

Part 3 now addresses the final element of the doctrine: the universal judgment of works. Scripture teaches plainly that every work will be brought into account, tested, and rewarded or burned. Far from contradicting the doctrine of justification by faith, this judgment vindicates the apostolic pattern with finality. Every work that was wrought in God endures; every work that was wrought in the flesh burns — regardless of the label under which it was performed.

The Universal Judgment of Works

The principle that every work will be judged is not a New Testament novelty — it is the conclusion of the wisest man in Israel: For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil (Ecc 12:14). Paul grounds the same universal principle in the character of God Himself: Who will render to every man according to his deeds (Rom 2:6). These are not threatening words for those who have entered the rest of Hebrews 4 and ceased from their own works — they are the promise that what the indwelling Worker has produced will not be forgotten. Every work will be brought into account. Scripture speaks of two judgments in which this accounting takes place.

Of the believer’s judgment Paul writes: For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad (2Co 5:10). The Greek word rendered “judgment seat” is bema (G968) — not a criminal court but a raised platform of accounting and award, the same word used for the athletic victor’s platform where prizes were given to those who had run and prevailed. The Corinthians knew the bema as a specific stone structure in their own forum, the very platform before which Paul had stood (Acts 18:12-17). When Paul invokes it here he is not describing a trial of condemnation — for there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus (Rom 8:1) — but an accounting of what each believer built, where every work is disclosed according to its substance and rewarded or lost accordingly.

Of the unbeliever’s judgment John writes: And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the 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 whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire (Rev 20:12, 15). The unbeliever’s works are the evidence, not the cause, of his exclusion. His works belong entirely to the natural order because he never entered the spiritual; no Worker has indwelt him; nothing he produced belonged to the living order.

These two judgments together, when understood, do not threaten the doctrine of justification by faith — they complete it. Works are the final witness of what faith has or has not produced. The fire does not determine who is in Christ; it discloses what was wrought in those who were, and the absence of works wrought in God in those who were not.

1 Corinthians 3: The Testing of Believers’ Works

The most searching passage on the judgment of believers’ works is Paul’s architectural image in 1 Corinthians 3. Having established that the foundation of the Christian life is Christ alone — For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ (1Co 3:11) — Paul turns to the materials each believer builds upon that foundation.

Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire (1Co 3:12-15).

Six materials in two categories. Gold, silver, and precious stones share one property: they endure fire. Wood, hay, and stubble share the opposite: they burn. The distinction is not in how a work appears to observers but in where it originated. Two men may preach the same sermon — one from the flesh, one from the indwelling Spirit — and only the fire of that day will reveal which was gold and which was stubble. Gold, silver, and precious stones are works wrought in God; wood, hay, and stubble are works of the natural order produced by the flesh of a believer whose foundation is Christ but whose materials are mixed.

The sobering implication is that a regenerate believer can build much of his life with the natural order’s materials. Paul names this condition plainly in the verses immediately before the fire-test: I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ… for ye are yet carnal (1Co 3:1-3). In Christ — the foundation is secure. Yet carnal — the materials are mixed. The flesh and the Spirit are contrary the one to the other within the same believer (Gal 5:17), and Christ Himself warned that the two cannot be mixed without cost — no man putteth new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out (Mat 9:17) — for the walk determines which produces the day’s labor. A believer who walks according to the flesh, even while resting on Christ for salvation, accumulates wood, hay, and stubble — works that bear the believer’s name but were not wrought by Christ. On the day of manifestation the fire speaks, and these materials return to the ash from which their nature always belonged.

What belongs to the natural order returns to ash; what was wrought in God cannot be burned away, for it was never the believer’s own production to begin with. The Spirit confirms this through John: Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them (Rev 14:13). The labors cease at death; the works follow. Works wrought in God cannot be consumed by fire — they are His, and what is His endures the fire.

This evaluation is not only a future event. To each of the seven churches Christ declares the same opening word: I know thy works (Rev 2:2, 2:9, 2:13, 2:19, 3:1, 3:8, 3:15). The Worker who dwells within is already examining what is being built — not with condemnation for those whose foundation is Christ, but with the clear-eyed knowledge of one who sees the difference between gold and stubble long before the fire speaks. The day of manifestation will not surprise Him; it will confirm what He has known all along.

He himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire (1Co 3:15). The believer’s person is preserved because his foundation is Christ; his reward is lost because his materials were flesh. The foundation is not in jeopardy; the building upon the foundation is. The question every day poses is not whether Christ is the foundation — for those who are in Him, He is — but whether today’s labor will prove gold or stubble when the fire speaks.

Matthew 7: Religious Works Rejected

If 1 Corinthians 3 warns the believer about materials that burn though the foundation endures, Matthew 7 warns the professing Christian about works that will be named “iniquity” though performed in Christ’s very name. This is the devastating capstone of the doctrine of dead works.

Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity (Mat 7:21-23).

The passage is devastating because the works in view are not immorality. They are not works of the flesh in the Galatians 5 sense. They are religious works of the most impressive kind — prophesying, casting out devils, performing wonderful works — and they are performed in Christ’s name. The name is invoked; the vocabulary is Christian; the outward shape is ministry. Yet Christ calls the whole catalog iniquity and names the workers as those whom He never knew.

The category of dead works therefore includes more than moral failure and more than ceremonial law-keeping. It includes religious ministry, spiritual gifts, and miraculous deeds performed by the old man in the flesh, even when the name of Christ is borne upon them. The reason Christ gives is telling: I never knew you. The issue is not the label on the work but the relationship from which the work proceeds. Where Christ has not known the worker — where no indwelling, no yielding to the Worker within has ever taken place — the works, however impressive, are dead works. They return to ash before the throne no matter how many they appeared to bless.

The warning functions as a flare to every generation of the church. Religious activity is not proof of life in the Spirit. Even miraculous activity is not proof of life in the Spirit. Sincere invocation of Christ’s name is not proof of life in the Spirit. The only proof is the Worker’s indwelling presence, manifesting in works wrought in God rather than merely wrought under His name. The question this passage leaves with every reader is not whether the work impresses observers but whether the Worker knows the one performing it. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature (2Co 5:17). Apart from that new creation, the most spectacular labor is still the old Adam’s — belonging to the natural order and dead.

Matthew 25: Works as Evidence

The sheep-and-goats scene in Matthew 25 has been taken by some as proof that salvation itself turns upon works — that acts of mercy toward Christ’s brethren are the basis of entrance to the kingdom. A careful reading reveals the opposite: works are the evidence of kingdom-belonging, not its basis. A still more careful reading reveals that the sheep and the goats are not two permanently separate groups of people but the two natures within each of us — the old man and the new — brought at last to their final separation before the King.

And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats (Mat 25:32). The shepherd does not bring two separate flocks from two separate fields. He divides what was gathered together — one assembly, two natures within it. The old man and the new man have coexisted in the believer throughout the walk. The day of judgment is the day of their final separation, when the King at last divides within each of us what the fire of 1 Corinthians 3 has already been testing: what was wrought in God and what was wrought in the flesh.

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world (Matt 25:34). The kingdom is prepared — and prepared from the foundation of the world, before any of the works in question could have been performed. The sheep-nature inherits what has been laid up for it; it does not purchase the inheritance with its deeds.

The list of deeds that follows — feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the imprisoned — is confirmatory evidence rather than meritorious cause. Observe the response of the sheep-nature: Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? (Mat 25:37). What was recounted to them is not recognized as what they stand on before God. They are surprised by it. Works wrought in God are not performed to earn anything. They flow naturally from the indwelling Christ, the way a branch bears fruit — not by striving but because of what it is connected to. They are the evidence that the Shepherd’s Spirit produced in His sheep the very compassion they exhibited toward Christ’s brethren — as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me (Mat 25:40).

The goat-nature, conversely, is set aside not because it failed to perform a certain quantity of works but because no works wrought in God ever appeared in it. The goat-nature belongs entirely to the natural order — the labor of the old man who never received the Worker, who never entered the rest, who never bore the fruit that would testify to Christ’s indwelling. When the book is opened there is nothing on the spiritual side because no spiritual life ever proceeded from it. The age-lasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels (Mat 25:41) is the appointed chastisement for what the natural order produced — not the final destination of a person but the consuming judgment of the old man within, whose works return to ash as all natural things must: I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth (Eze 28:18), and what remains of the natural becomes ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the LORD of hosts (Mal 4:3). The fire does not end the story; it clears the ground for what the spiritual order will walk upon.

This is how the universal judgment of works harmonizes with salvation by grace through faith. Works do not save, but works reveal whether the indwelling Worker has been at work. The tree is known by its fruit; the man is known by his works; the root of each being whether the old Adam still reigns or the Last Adam has entered in to work. The separation the King performs is not a sorting of persons into permanent categories — it is the final, decisive division within the whole man between what was natural and what was spiritual, what was dead and what was living, what was the old Adam’s and what was the Last Adam’s.

Conclusion: The Worker Glorified

The two works of Scripture, rightly seen, declare a single testimony: Christ is the Worker, and every valid work is finally His. The old man’s labor, however religious, was dead works because the source was the natural man as God created him — a living soul subject to vanity by God’s own purpose (Rom 8:20), a natural shadow ordained to foreshadow the spiritual reality to come. The new man’s labor is living work because the source is the quickening spirit, and God Himself worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure (Php 2:13). The shadow did not fail; it succeeded perfectly in revealing that a Worker must come who could accomplish in His people what they could never accomplish on their own.

This is not a narrative of rescue from calamity but the unfolding of a sovereign design. Humanity was not created in spiritual perfection and afterward corrupted; humanity was created a living soul, earthy, natural, subject to vanity by the One who subjected it in hope (Rom 8:20-21; 1Co 15:45-47). The first Adam’s inability was not defect but design, for that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual (1 Cor 15:46). The very dead works of the old man served the plan by making visible the need and glory of the Last Adam, the quickening spirit, the living Worker who would dwell in His people and accomplish through them the works prepared before the foundation of the world.

The apparent tensions in Scripture’s testimony concerning works—between faith and works, between Paul and James, between grace and judgment—dissolve when we see that Scripture speaks with one voice about the natural and the spiritual. Faith is the entrance; works are the manifestation; grace is the foundation; and judgment is the final disclosure of which works were wrought in God and which were not. The gold, silver, and precious stones endure because they were Christ’s working; the wood, hay, and stubble burn because they were the flesh’s labor even in a believer’s life. The religious works of Matthew 7 are rejected because the Worker never knew the worker. The sheep-and-goats catalog of Matthew 25 vindicates the indwelling Christ in those who belong to Him and exposes His absence in those who do not. The fire reveals what the day has hidden, and the Worker is glorified in His works through His people.

For those in Christ, the ancient burden has been lifted. We do not labor to become accepted; we labor because we have been accepted. We do not strive to build righteousness; we walk in the good works prepared for us. We do not work in order to become God’s workmanship; we are His workmanship, and therefore we work. The weariness of dead works gives way to the rest of the one who has entered in—For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his (Heb 4:10). The old Adam has ceased. The Last Adam works, and the works that now appear in the believer’s life are no longer the monument of self-effort but the testimony of the indwelling Christ, from whom, through whom, and to whom are all things (Rom 11:36).

Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual… For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them (1Co 15:46; Eph 2:10).