Revelation 2:23

Believers too will be judged for their works. But the judgment they face is infinitely different than that of the nonbeliever for it is a judgment for rewards. Even if the believer is devoid of works, he himself escapes the wrath of Almighty God (1Cor. 1Cor. 3:13-15), for his righteousness is provided by God Himself (Jer. Jer. 23:6).⁴

Biblical faith is to bring forth the fruit of the Spirit and the works thereof which are an indication of true faith:

It is indeed one of the gravest mischiefs which Rome has bequeathed to us, that in a reaction and protest, itself absolutely necessary, against the false emphasis which she puts on works, unduly thrusting them in to share with Christ’s merits in our justification, we often fear to place upon them the true; being as they are, to speak with St. Bernard, the “via regni” [way of royalty], however little the “causa regnandi” [cause of royalty].⁵

Notes

¹ A. R. Fausset, “The Revelation of St. John the Divine,” in Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown, A Commentary, Critical and Explanatory, on the Old and New Testaments (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997, 1877), Rev. 2:23.

² Henry Morris, The Revelation Record (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1983), 62.

³ “The only things left in the body cavity by the Egyptian embalmers.”—Frederick William Danker and Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2000), s.v. “nephras.”

⁴ If the life of a professing believer is truly devoid of all good works, then Scripture indicates the profession is suspect (Jas. Jas. 2:14-26).

⁵ Richard Chenevix Trench, Commentary on the Epistles to the Seven Churches in Asia (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1861), 144.