Hear what the Lord Jesus says will happen on that Day:
Do not be surprised at this, for the hour is coming when the dead will leave their graves at the sound of his voice: those who did good will come forth to life; and those who did evil will come forth to judgement. (John 5:28-29, NJB; emphasis added)
No mention of faith here. None. On the contrary judgment will be based upon whether we have done good or evil in this life. As usual I hasten to add that it would be an argument from silence to suggest that faith is not needed, but it would be just plain silly to say that what we do is irrelevant. Jesus says the exact opposite here.
The other interesting thing here is that the Lord contradicts the Reformed doctrine of “total depravity,” according to which it is supposedly impossible for literally anyone to do good. But if this is true, then heaven will be empty (based upon what Jesus says above). But that is absurd. We can’t save ourselves, and we can’t get to heaven on our own, but that is very different from pretending that no one does good.
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