Online Bible Audio/Readings Links (ESV)
1/12 Reading Portions: Genesis 13; Matthew 12; Nehemiah 2; Acts 12
Listen to the audio devotional above, and/or read the written devotional below.
“...for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” Matthew 12:37
TESTIMONY
When the Lord Jesus returns, our words will either justify us, to the glory of God’s amazing grace, or condemn us, to the glory of God’s holy justice. Yet, it is not by mere words we stand or fall, but by the true or careless testimony of Christ given in the Day of Judgment (Matt 12:36). In its immediate context, the statement was made with regard to trees and fruit (Matt 12:33-35). In its overall context, the statement sums up the Lord’s defense of the gospel with regard to blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (Matt 12:22-32).
In the Day of Judgment, there will be those who have certainly denied Christ during their lives. These Pharisees, for example, claimed Jesus cast out demons by the power of Satan (Matt 12:24). Their excuses to Christ in the judgment will condemn them. There will also be those who say they were believers in Christ during their lives, yet they lived like the devil, or for the temporal, God-hating world (Matt 12:34). Their words of trust in Christ will bring an even greater condemnation upon them because the cross (tree) did not bear good fruit in their lives (Matt 12:33). Moreover, there will be those who appeal to Christ in the judgment by boasting their own good works in Jesus’ name (Matt 7:21-23). Their false confession, coupled with the idolatry of their own works in Christ’s name, will bring the greatest condemnation of all; a betrayal akin to the hypocrisy and betrayal of Judas Iscariot.
Those who are saved by God’s grace, however, will have a confession which will be justified because it will exalt Jesus Christ for the person He is and the work He has done. Why? Because man cannot justify himself. Only God can justify (Rom 8:33).
What fruit is produced in the true believer’s life? How does one walk the talk and, in the Day of Judgment, talk the walk? Receiving by faith alone the grace God gives through Christ. The greater works we do when we are filled with the Spirit (John 14:12) is being empowered as sinners saved by grace to walk with our eyes of faith set upon the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ alone— living according to what Christ has done, not what we do or can do in His name. That’s the greatest miracle. Hallelujah! What a Savior!