Judgment of Believers in the Westminster Standards

Rick Phillips

In my most recently published article on Ref21, Five Arguments Against Future Justification According to Works (see part 2 here), I expressed the position that the judgment of believers in Christ on the last day will consist only of reward and praise, all to the glory of our Lord.  My main arguments for this were that 1) the biblical representations of believers on the last day involve no depictions of chastisement or shaming, but only reward and praise; and 2) believers will appear at the final judgment after they have entered into their glorified states via the final resurrection, which occurs prior to the final judgment, and the idea of judgment is incongruent with believers' glorified state.  In response, I have received a query as to the conformity of my view with the Westminster Standards.  In particular, WCF 33:1 says that "all persons that have lived upon earth shall appear before the tribunal of Christ, to give an account of their thoughts, words, and deeds, and to receive according to what they have done in the body, whether good or evil."