who shall render to each according to his works
God judges by one fixed standard, and this verse names it: what each person has done. So if God settles accounts by works, what happens to salvation by grace?
Once God has revealed Himself, He deals with people by what they do. Being Jew or Greek changes nothing under that test.
Now that God is revealed, He deals with man according to his actions. In the day of judgment He will render to everyone according to his works, whether he is Jew or Greek, for God shows no partiality. He had indeed chosen a people, and brought them near to Himself, to put man to the test... but at root there was no difference among men. All were sinners by nature, and all had sinned... In His righteousness God counts only the measure of light each person has.
People share one fallen nature, so nature cannot tell one from another. Works can.
In the day of judgment, therefore, God will give the award not according to the nature, in which they are alike, but according to their works, in which they are not alike. God "will render to each one according to his works" (Rom. 2:6). And this, and this alone, will be the exact measure of guilt and responsibility.
God renders to everyone. That is not the same as judging everyone.
The third great principle of God's judgment is that in judgment "God will render to each one according to his works". The verse does not say here when God will do this for well doing. But for evil doing it plainly names the time: the "day of wrath". Yet the Apostle does not say that God will judge each one, for only the evil doer comes into judgment in the "day of wrath". God will "render" to each one according to his works.
Does forgiveness cancel the accounting? No — an honest man still settles his accounts, and past kindnesses do not make that settlement unjust.
This is the unchanging principle of God's righteous dealings, and grace does not weaken it at all. Grace, it is true, lays our sins on another as our substitute. It credits us with the good deeds God's own power works in us. But this confirms the principle instead of contradicting it. If an upright man winds up his affairs, he collects what is due to him, and pays what he owes. And it is no less just if he has cancelled some debts, or taken on some obligations, out of kindness.
Salvation and reward do not rest on the same basis:
Judgment takes account of everything, including greater advantages. Each person gives account according to his light and receives according to his deeds. Salvation is according to grace; reward or judgment is according to works.
Verses 6 to 11 never mention faith, and some read that as a doorway to earning eternal life by effort. Reading further closes the door.
Verses 6 to 11 trouble some minds, because they never mention faith in Christ. Some read verse 7, for instance, and say, "There! So after all you have only got to keep on doing good and seeking good, and eternal life will be yours at the end." But read on a little further, and you discover this: no one does good or seeks good unless he believes in Christ.
The verse can be misused, and that tempts us to soften it. The counsel runs the other way: answer the misuse from other Scripture, and let this sentence keep its full weight on the conscience.
Well, a man says, "There may then be good people, and if they do good, they will get glory, honour, and peace." But I say to him, "You are completely wrong; no one is good but God." Plenty of Scripture meets such a case. But we do not need to weaken this sentence in Romans to do it. God's nature requires a certain life and character in a man for him to be with God... You must have that life and walk in that life, or you will not be in heaven. So this is broad dealing with conscience, and that is what we must not weaken.
- Render — God's rule is fixed: He deals with each person by what they did, not by which group they belong to.
- Measure — all share one fallen nature, so works alone measure each person's guilt and responsibility, against the light they had.
- Distinction — God renders to each one, but the text does not say He judges each one. Only the evil-doer comes into judgment in the day of wrath.
- Confirmed — grace does not suspend this accounting. It lays the sins on a substitute and works the good deeds by God's own power. That upholds the rule instead of breaking it.
- Unweakened — no one seeks good except by believing in Christ, so let the verse stand at full force on the conscience.
to them who, in patient continuance of good works, seek for glory and honour and incorruptibility, life eternal.
This verse sits inside Paul's account of how God will judge every person, Jew or Gentile, "according to his works." Here we get the reward side of that judgment. It raises two questions: what are these people seeking, and how can such a verse stand beside salvation by grace?
The verse states a rule of God's dealings that runs through the whole Bible and is not softened by the good news of forgiveness.
This is the unchanging principle of God's righteous dealings, and grace does not weaken it in any way. Grace, it is true, lays our sins on another as our substitute. It also credits us with the good deeds worked in us by God's own power. But this confirms the principle instead of contradicting it. If an upright man settles his affairs, he collects what is owed to him and pays what he owes. Kindness may have cancelled some debts, or taken on some obligations. That does not make what he does any less just.
The Greek word translated "immortality" here is not the usual word for deathlessness.
In Romans 2:7 and 2 Timothy 1:10 the word is aphtharsia — not "immortality," but "incorruption."
Older translations read "incorruptibility" here instead of "immortality." That changes what the seeking is about: not deathlessness, but a state that belongs to the resurrection.
God will render eternal life "to them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honour and incorruption." That is not at all the same as seeking immortality. It is the blessed, incorruptible state into which resurrection, or the "change," will bring the saints at the coming of Christ.
The test is not flawless performance. It is what the heart aims at.
It is of course not a matter of absolute holiness or perfection here; but the heart clearly shows itself. Does the heart set itself on what is good? Does it patiently continue to follow what is pure and true? Does it bear the unmistakable stamp of eternity — the weighing of everlasting realities?
Verse 7 is only half of a pair. The next verse names the opposite of patient endurance.
"To them who, by patient continuance in well doing, seek for glory, and honour, and immortality" — this marks out their object — "eternal life." Set against these are "them who are contentious." Contention is the opposite of enduring and suffering, and it marks the way of the world. They "do not obey the truth": they have not God's object, and they do not submit to His righteousness.
Nobody seeks glory, honour and incorruptibility by instinct. Someone has to tell you about them first.
But without the gospel men never heard of these things. The law set men to seek life on earth by fulfilling their obligations. It is the gospel that sets these great objects before the soul. So no one can meet the conditions for eternal life without hearing and believing the gospel.
God holds to this rule without exception. Yet nobody meets it out of his own resources.
God always holds to His own principle: those who "by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory, and honour, and incorruptibility" have eternal life, and none others. What produces this patient continuance in well-doing is another matter, and what awakens souls to seek after it. It is not from themselves, but from God.
Elsewhere eternal life is a present possession. Here it stands at the end of a journey, still ahead.
There is another way of viewing eternal life — its full completion in glory, according to the whole purpose of God. Seen this way, we are of course not said to have it, but to follow after it… Romans 2 puts this as a great general principle. It throws no cloud over that great truth. It is simply what is everywhere found in the New Testament: the energy of faith on the wilderness journey, moving on through grace toward the full result for which God has redeemed us. We have to go the road to arrive, but we have sure grace and the keeping of God to go it.
So what about John's writings, where the believer already has eternal life?
Paul here looks at eternal life more in its future aspect — that is, when it is separated from the very presence of sin, in its own proper sphere, heaven itself. But this does not deny the truth found in John's writings, that "whoever believes in the Son has eternal life." Every believer possesses eternal life at present, but that life is out of its own home… so its full display must await heaven's glory.
- Standard. God renders to each according to his works; grace pays the debt but never repeals the rule.
- Object. They seek glory, honour and incorruptibility — the incorruptible state resurrection brings the saints at Christ's coming, not mere deathlessness.
- Direction. The test is not perfection but a heart stamped by eternity, patiently continuing in what is good.
- Source. No one hears of these things apart from the gospel. And no one produces the patient well-doing from himself; it comes from God.
- End. Eternal life is here the finish of the road; we must walk it to arrive, kept the whole way by grace.