What Happens When We Stand Before God?

In our church community group last night, we started talking about the verses in the Bible that say that we will one day have to stand before God and "give an account" for our actions.  Specifically, we were talking about Matthew 12:36-37 where Jesus says, "On the day of judgment people will give an account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

Does "giving an account" mean - as many of us have been told -that we will have to stand in an interminably long line before God, waiting our chance to:
a) watch a video of every bad thing we've ever done - which everyone else in line can see too
b) wait and see if we'll be condemned and cast out or allowed in, based on the merit of our actions
c) be made to feel really guilty about our bad deeds/words/thoughts and made to realize how close we are to judgment...before Jesus jumps in and sets us free now that we know just how close we came
d) some combination therein?

None of these options seem to make either logical or biblical sense to me, so I decided to take some time today to study the relevant passages and the verses surrounding them.

Matthew 12:36-37 (quoted above).
What's going on?
     Well, the Pharisees (self-righteous religious leaders) observe Jesus casting out a demon from a formerly demon-possessed guy and they think to themselves - "it must be by the power of the prince of demons that Jesus has the power to cast out demons."  Basically, they think Jesus must be demonic in some way.
     Jesus can read their thoughts and calls out their flawed logic - "a house divided cannot stand" - and rebukes them.  He says that every kind of sin and blasphemy will be forgiven except blaspheming the Holy Spirit, i.e. flagrantly, willfully, and persistently attributing God's work to Satan. 
     Jesus goes on to call them out for thinking that good words can come out of evil hearts. 

So, when it says people will give an account for their words, contextually it means two things: 1) Pharisees (and us), in all of your self-righteousness, you are still condemned by every careless word you speak.  No matter how good a person you think you are, no one always has control over their tongue and so therefore all of us deserve condemnation by God.   
2) This also that your words reveal your heart - you can't have a clean heart and say such ugly things... which means all of our hearts are uglier than we realize.

Romans 14:11-12 "As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me and every tongue confess to God." (quoting Isaiah 45:23) So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.
What's going on?
     Paul has been making it clear that none of us should judge one another and that, specifically, the strong of will and conviction should not judge the weak.  Why? Because in the end, all of us will be judged by God.

Everyone - weak and strong - will be held accountable for his/her actions before God.

 
Hebrews 4:13 No creature is hidden from His sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give an account.
What's going on?
     Short version is that the author of Hebrews is exhorting the people not to fall into the faithless disobedience that the Israelities displayed while in exile.  Why?  Because God sees thoughts and the intentions of the heart.

We are all exposed before Him and will be held accountable for not only our actions and words but our thoughts as well. 

1 Peter 4:5 They will give an account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.

What's going on?
     If you make choices to obey God instead of participating in the debaucherous, sinful lifestyle that some participate in, they will judge you and mock you.  However, in the end, they will be judged by God.

Even those who don't worship God will be subject to His judgment.

In summary:

All of us, whether we call ourselves Christians or not, will be judged by God for our actions, words, and thoughts.  And God sees them all.

Sounds pretty morbid.

But this isn't the whole story of the Bible. 

2 Corinthians 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body whether good or evil.
What's going on?
     Paul has been talking about how our home, our ultimate destination, is heaven and so we should live lives pleasing to God.  He's saying that our present actions have eternal consequences - think Gladiator when Russell Crowe says, "What we do in life echoes in eternity."   We will all receive "what is due."
     Our actions will demonstrate (or not) the genuineness of our faith.  See James chapter 2.  We aren't vindicated and justified by our actions; rather for our inward faith to be authentic, it must manifest itself in outward action.  These actions are the evidence of faith.

So our actions don't have to be good enough to get into heaven, simply to demonstrate that we have faith in Jesus.  Our actions don't save us, faith in Jesus does.

But don't we still face scary judgment/weird life videos?

Romans 5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
     

Jesus gives us peace with God through His sacrifice if we have faith in Him.  We have nothing to fear on the day of judgment.  There won't be any last-second Almighty finger-wagging.  God loves us enough to pour out His wrath on His Son instead of us and Jesus loves us and His Father enough to take it willingly for those who believe in Him.  

Romans 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

 

Charles Spurgeon, the great 19th century preacher, said "Our Savior drank the tremendous cup of wrath for us down to the final drop so that our cup will not have one drop of wrath in it for ever." 

We WILL all have to give an account.  And ALL of us will be found lacking and deserving God's just wrath.  

But those who believe in Christ and receive the grace and mercy that He freely offers to ANY and ALL people will find that the wrath we deserve has been spent - Jesus took it all for us and in exchange He gave us the love and blessing that He deserves.

If we are in Christ, we have nothing to fear on the day of judgment.  

(It should be noted, and this is probably the topic of another post, that God will judge our actions and reward us in heaven according to them - but in Christ, that judgment is all about potential reward and not unavoidable condemnation.)