It is right for us all to appear before Christ’s judgment seat, so that each
of us may carry away what we have done through our body in regard to
those things,whether good or evil. ( 2 Corinthians 5 : 10 )
The Son of Humankind is going to come in the glory of his Father.
Then he will repay all according to their deeds.(Matthew 16 : 27 )
I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Blessed are the dead who die in
the Lord from now on. The Spirit says that they will rest from their
labors. Their works follow them.”(Revelation 14 : 13 )
A book is opened, which is the book of life, and the dead are judged
according to the things that are written in the book. All are judged accord-
ing to their works.(Revelation 20 : 12 , 13 )
Behold, I am coming quickly, and my reward is with me to give to all
according to their work.(Revelation 22 : 12 )
Jehovah, whose eyes are open to all the ways of human beings, to give
to them all according to their ways and according to the fruit of their
works.(Jeremiah 32 : 19 )
I will bring judgment upon them according to their ways and will
reward their works.(Hosea 4 : 9 )
Jehovah deals with us according to our ways and according to our works.
(Zechariah 1 : 6 )There are thousands of other passages like these.
On this basis one can clearly see that goodwill and faith are not good-
will and faith before they exist in actions. If they exist only up in the sky or
in the mind above actions, they are like images of a tabernacle or a church in
the air that are just strange aerial phenomena that spontaneously disappear.
They are like paintings on paper that bookworms are chewing through.
They are like our living on a roof with no bed rather than in a house.
From all this you can see that goodwill and faith are transient entities
when they are merely mental—unless, when there is an opportunity for
us to do them, they culminate in actions and become embodied in them.
(c) Goodwill alone does not produce good actions; even less does faith 377
alone produce them. Good actions are produced by goodwill and faith together.
The reason for this is that goodwill without faith is not goodwill, and
faith without goodwill is not faith, as I have shown above, §§ 355 – 358.
Goodwill does not exist all alone by itself, and neither does faith. As a
§377 faith 451