This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven. – Acts 1:11

Above is the witness of two men clothed in white to the disciples present atop the Mount of Olives, as Jesus was taken up to His glory at the right hand of God (John 17:5). Their question posed to the disciples: “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the heavens? And maybe if those two heavenly witnesses stood beside us today. Their question might sound very different: “Men of God, why do you not look to the heavens? Do you not know that every one of you would stand in judgement before His throne? (Hebrews 9:27)” An Oxford-mathematician, Professor Emeritus and Christian apologist, John Lennox, would say: “Atheism is often seen as a comfort—not because there is no God, but because if there is no God, there is no ultimate accountability.” And many Christians tragically live in similar atheistic comfort or spiritual ignorance to the ultimate accountability we have before God – as our actions give us away. The Bible talks about such accountabilities that the believer is responsible for and therefore is being called to repent and edify himself up in righteousness in such areas.

The first such accountability is discussed by Jesus in Matthew 10:5-15. Which is in regard to our response to the Gospel message. This passage is one of the places where the Bible presents different degrees of the judgement of God, based on our knowledge of the truth. The other passages include Matthew 11:20-24, Matthew 12:41-42, John 19:11, Luke 12:42-48, Hebrews 10:29 & James 3:1. For us who have gotten it easy in the new covenant of grace of Jesus Christ, we need only turn the pages of our Bible to the old testament to perceive how God views such intentional sins (sins of knowledge). In Number 15:30-31 the Mosaic law made no provisions of defiant (high-handed) sins. Such a person was to be cut-off from the rest of the congregation. And this intentional sin is also called blaspheming the Lord. Blasphemy means to cause harm. Without getting into much detail, we see how this sin can indeed now be forgiven in the new testament – through Jesus Christ (Matthew 12:31). But not the sin of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit (Mark 3:29). Which is short is this – the callousness of the heart in continual sinning to the point of impenitence (Romans 2:5). So it’s not mere Bible knowledge that can save a person from Hell (even prideful Satan possesses more than us!). But the living bread when broken (humility) in one’s life leads to eternal life (John 6:50-51). The Word of God must first break us in our sins, before we can find repentance in our hearts. Knowledge can only shine the flashlight on our sins.

“Is not My word like fire?” declares the Lord, “and like a hammer which shatters a rock? – Jeremiah 23:29

While one part of accountability, as we have read, is response and repentance to knowledge. The other is in its bold proclamation. The prophet Ezekiel like the other OT prophets did not have it easy. He would have begun his prophetic ministry to the children of Israel in one of the nation’s darkest days – right before the Babylonian exile in 587 B.C. His message of deliverance to the nation of Israel was not one that proclaimed immediate rescue. But one in the near future. And so right at the onset of Ezekiel’s ministry, God gives him this warning in Ezekiel 3:18: When I say to the wicked, ‘You will surely die,’ and you do not warn him or speak out to warn the wicked from his wicked way that he may live, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. The apostle Paul echoes a similar pattern of such in his own proclamation of the resurrected Christ to Ephesus in Acts 20:26-27: Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men. For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God. The key is in its whole proclamation and not just partial. We are not called to judge or condemn anyone in their sin (Luke 6:37) – of its very importance the modern church has well understood and religiously follows. Yet, this has often become a smoke screen to hide behind and not address sin boldly and with grace (2 Timothy 2:24-25). Silence in the knowledge of sin or wrongdoing is equated with the very guilt of that sin! (Leviticus 5:1)

Be on your guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. – Luke 17:3

Take a moment to imagine the questions that God would ask you on that Day of judgment. We who read the Word everyday, who hear sermons every week, who study the Scriptures, who memorize it. We who are obese with Bible knowledge. Is there only a semblance of the Word in us? Like the Pharisees, who washed the outside of their cups and not the inside? (Matthew 23:25-26) Remember, God judges by what not men see. But that which is hidden in your heart.

…on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus. – Romans 2:16