Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For we have no continuing city here, but we seek one to come.
Select a thought to read by choosing a collection, the month, and then the day:
“So speak, and so do, as they who shall be judged by the perfect law of liberty.”
James 2:12
Sinners will be judged by a different standard than will God’s saints. They will not be judged by the perfect law of liberty because they have never been set free. But God’s children have been liberated from the power of darkness (Col. 1:13), and from bondage to the will of the flesh (Rom. 6:14). They have been made free to choose between good and evil, between doing righteousness or committing sin.
Only those whom the Son has made free (Jn. 8:36) will be judged by the perfect law of liberty. Jesus described that law to his followers during a sermon while they all sat around him on a mountain. He told them that the Law of Moses condemned people who killed but that the law of liberty would condemn people for hating others without a cause. He said that the Law of Moses condemned adulterers but that the law of liberty would condemn those who merely wanted to commit adultery. The law by which the New Testament saints will be judged encompasses the whole of man, not just the deeds that his body does. This new law judges our most inward thought. It records our intentions. The Old Testament Law could not do that.
If the blood of Christ has made you free, you no longer have any excuse for sin. In this New Covenant, we are given power over sin and are no longer subject to it. In Christ, we have been given power to live a pure and holy life. That is the standard of the perfect law of liberty. Anything but that kind of life, it will condemn in the Judgment. Sinners will not have to face that high standard in the Final Judgment, but every one of God’s children will.
Have you lived according to the perfect law of liberty from sin under which we who are in Christ live? That is the standard by which we will be judged, and it is both a wonderful thing to be a part of that law and a fearful thing to think of being judged by it.