Does this mean that even believers are to give an account before God? By looking at the word judgment'' in light of everything else the Bible offers, we can know that believers do not come into judgment. Let us see why this is so.

The Greek word used in Matthew 12:36 and translated judgment'' in the King James Bible is the word krisis.'' We find this same word used in John 5:24, where Christ declares, He that heareth My Word and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death into life.''

The word translated condemnation'' is the word krisis,'' the identical word used in Matthew 12. Thus we are assured that those who have placed their trust in Christ do not give an account before the Judgment Throne. If we should expand this thought further, we would see that the reason we do not come into judgment is that Christ has become sin for those who have placed their trust in Him, and He has already been judged for those sins.

Therefore, believers can not be judged again for the sins that have already been taken care of by our Savior. Effectively, the believers have already stood before the judgment throne of God to answer for their sins. They did so in the person of Jesus Christ, who as their substitute was laden with their sins, was found guilty of those sins, and was punished for those sins.

Thus the demands of the law of God set forth in 2 Corinthians 5:10 have been met by Christ on behalf of all who believe on Him. This verse declares:

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.

These are just a few of the great number of examples that could be offered, indicating that we must examine words carefully in the light of their use throughout the whole Bible to discover their true meaning. Since God is the author of the Bible,

we can expect that every word found in the Bible in the original language has been carefully selected by God regardless of whether Luke, Jeremiah, or Moses was the human author. Because we know that God is infallible in all that He does, we can place implicit trust in the Bible.

Wow! Amen to that! . Praise the LORD JESUS!