From the “Bible Facts” Newspaper Articles, by Ian Kurylyk, January 2013
"So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God" (Romans 14:12).
“You be the judge” may well summarize the responsibilities each of us now face as we sit in the driver’s seat of our lives. But the time will come when the judgment will be all God’s and we will take the place of defendants.
This is a rudimentary fact of theology. Just as God is revealed to us in the Bible as omnipotent (all-powerful), omniscient (all-knowing), and infinite in all His attributes, so He is the Judge of all judges. “Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world…” (Acts 17:31a).
The Book of Romans in the New Testament was written with the tremendous system of Roman laws as its backdrop. Thinking in legal terms helps us understand our relationship to the Creator. Words familiar to their justice system are used like “condemnation” (the guilty verdict), and “justification” (the judge’s declaration that the defendant is righteous). These are applied in the Bible to a man’s standing, not before a Roman judge, but before God.
The consciousness of this is largely lost today. We live in a society that has rejected Bible Christianity and largely embraced secular humanism as its religion. So no thought is given to the law of God, the consequences of human sin, or the fact that God is judge.
Nevertheless, God challenges us, as stewards of our own souls, to put life in perspective by contemplating our place as defendants before God the judge. What will I say? What will I plead when my life is reviewed? What will be my punishment?
The solution to our problem as guilty law breakers before God is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He offers pardon now on the basis of His suffering the penalty for our sins on the cross. The resurrected Lord invites you to receive Him as personal Lord and Saviour and so settle your sin problem out of court. Those who do will never have to stand in the terrible judgment spoken of in Revelation 20. “And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them … And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:11, 15).