How Does God Judge Sin? The Question That Will Decide Your Eternity

How will God judge you when you stand before Him at the end of your life? Many people hope they will be judged with compassion and that their good deeds will make up for the bad. But what does the Bible have to say about it?

Are there any innocent people? Do good deeds cancel out bad deeds? What if someone obeyed God their entire life but sinned only once? Would one sin really make them guilty?

Exactly what makes a person innocent or guilty?

Innocence and guilt are not on a sliding scale. They are not a spectrum. There is no such thing as being more innocent than guilty or more guilty than innocent.

A person may have done more good deeds than bad, but that does not move them closer to an innocent verdict. It simply means they have done what is right more often. Yet if they sin, they are still guilty of committing that sin, no matter how many times they have obeyed the law.

Imagine a doctor who has saved hundreds of lives. One day he steals an expensive piece of equipment and is caught.

When he stands before the judge, no one can deny the good he has done. His service may even be considered when determining his sentence. But his service cannot change the fact that he stole something. He is still guilty of theft because the question before the court is not how much good he has done, but whether he committed the crime.

Not breaking the law is the minimum we can do. It is what is expected of us. It is when we fail to do what we are supposed to do that we end up in trouble. No one is supposed to go to jail unless they have committed a crime. And you do not have to commit multiple crimes before you are held accountable for one.

Judges do not base their verdict of guilt on whether we have never broken a law before. They base it on whether we have broken the law at all.

When we stand before God on the Day of Judgment, He is not going to declare us innocent of our sins because we followed His law more often than not. We will still be found guilty if we have broken His law at all.

Once guilt exists, it cannot be erased simply by doing what we should have been doing all along.

All Have Sinned

Consider your entire life. Have you ever committed something that God, the Lawgiver, calls sin? It doesn’t matter whether you think it was sin or not. It is what the Judge thinks that will determine the outcome on the Day of Judgment.

Have you ever loved anything or anyone more than God? Have you ever failed to act in love toward someone else? Have you ever stolen, lied, cheated, or lusted? Just one of these sins results in a guilty verdict.

I’ve heard many people claim to be sinless. They think that because they don’t steal, kill, or do anything major, they are righteous. But again, that’s not how it works. It doesn’t matter whether your sin is large or small. Sin is sin.

If we are honest with ourselves, we will have to acknowledge that we have committed sin, even if we don’t think it should be considered sin. God has given the law, and it will testify against us. The truth will stand, even if we deny it.

Imagine that the judge you are about to stand before is the very one against whom you committed the crime—and that he personally witnessed you do it. Do you think it is reasonable to say that you already know what the verdict is going to be?

Well, when we commit sin, we commit a crime against God, and He sees everything. The Day of Judgment is just a formality. He has already told us what the verdict is going to be: guilty as charged.

We are all guilty as charged.

Why Christians Preach Repentance

If every one of us has sinned, then why do Christians call others to repent? Isn’t that hypocritical?

It would be hypocritical if Christians claimed to be innocent while condemning everyone else. But that is not the message of the gospel. Christians are not pointing to themselves as the standard of righteousness. We need the same Savior as everyone else.

When we call people to repent, we are not claiming to be better than they are. We are simply pointing them to the same cure that rescued us.

God calls His law holy, just, and good. If we want to walk with Him, we must first agree with Him. That means agreeing that His law is good, agreeing that we have broken it, and agreeing that we need His forgiveness.

Repentance is not about pretending that Christians never sin. It is not even about never sinning again. It is about acknowledging our guilt before God and turning to the only One who can save us.

So what can we do if we know that we are going to be found guilty before God?

The Cure for Guilt

No amount of good we do can cover the sin in our lives. So we are in a hopeless situation. It is impossible for us to be found innocent because we are guilty. Our condemnation has already been determined.

Many unbelievers misunderstand this passage. They think it teaches that they are condemned because they do not believe in Jesus rather than because of their sin. But the reality is that they are condemned already because of their sins, and they remain condemned because they have not accepted the remedy for their guilt.

It is like saying a person died simply because they did not take their medication. The medication was the cure for what was actually killing them. They died because they refused the cure for the root problem. That is on them, not on the medication or the doctor who prescribed it. They were already dying before they were ever prescribed the medicine.

We are already condemned because of our sin. We cannot cure our guilt by our own efforts. The penalty for sin must be paid.

That is why God is willing to accept the sacrifice of Jesus as payment for our debt. His sacrifice is the cure. It is the only way to be set free on the Day of Judgment.

The difference between condemnation and forgiveness comes down to whether justice has been satisfied. The only way to satisfy justice is through death. That is a debt we cannot pay without perishing ourselves.

When someone makes full restitution for the wrong they have done, the person they wronged may choose to forgive them because the debt has been satisfied. In the same way, Jesus paid the debt we could never pay ourselves. He satisfied justice on our behalf so that God can extend mercy without compromising His righteousness.

This divides humanity into two groups:

• Those who are condemned already.
• Those who are forgiven.

One group acknowledges that God’s law is good and that they need forgiveness. The other refuses to acknowledge its guilt and instead tries to establish its own righteousness.

The only people whose guilt has been forgiven are those who have received the righteousness of Jesus through faith, because our own righteousness will never be enough.

You may now be asking, “What about children? What about babies? Why do they die? Are they seen as guilty of sin from birth?”

Some believe we are born and are immediately regarded as guilty. This is not what the Bible teaches. If it were true that all human beings are guilty of sin before they even take their first breath, then there would be no hope of salvation—because Jesus was made human too.

But sadly, your sin affects my life, and my sin affects yours. That is why even children die. They are not being punished. They are suffering from the effects of another person’s actions. We will discuss this further in the next study.

Continue To Unit 2:9 – What Is Original Sin – Are We Born Guilty? OR

Return To Christianity 101 Unit 2 – Sin and Eternal Judgment