How Are Teachers Judged More Strictly?
00:00:00.000 | Case from Dripping Springs, Texas asks, "What does it mean that teachers will be
00:00:10.520 | judged with greater strictness?" (James 3:1) "When you say the teachers will be held
00:00:14.520 | more responsible than others for teaching what is fully biblical, what
00:00:17.400 | does that really mean in light of the fact that the believer is justified by
00:00:19.960 | faith alone?" Another way to ask it is, "What will be the ramifications for the
00:00:23.820 | Christian teacher who accidentally preaches some form of falsehood?" Let's
00:00:28.200 | get the text in front of us here. It's James 3.1. "Not many of you should become
00:00:34.480 | teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach," then the ESV translates,
00:00:43.000 | "will be judged with greater strictness." Literally, it's knowing that we will
00:00:49.360 | receive the greater judgment. So evidently, the implication is, if you
00:00:55.040 | teach and you stumble, because the next word says we all stumble in many ways,
00:01:00.740 | that is, you stumble in teaching either in some unholy way, you use language
00:01:06.160 | that's an unholy way, or you teach some error, then for you the judgment is going
00:01:13.000 | to be stricter. Now what's going on there? I think the principles
00:01:19.120 | that are being assumed there go something like this. Number one, knowing
00:01:25.560 | what to do makes one accountable to do it. Romans 1.20. His invisible attributes,
00:01:33.640 | namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever
00:01:40.440 | since creation of the world in the things that have been made, so they are
00:01:45.160 | without excuse. So the principle there is, well, you would have an excuse at the
00:01:49.600 | judgment day if the invisible attributes of God compelling you to worship were
00:01:56.360 | not known by you. So the principle behind the greater judgment or the judgment is
00:02:02.080 | you will be called a judge, judgment, because you knew what you should do, and
00:02:08.360 | the assumption is teachers, by teaching, are claiming to know what they ought to
00:02:13.680 | do, and therefore they have greater judgment if they fall short. Here's
00:02:19.000 | principle number two, knowing more makes one more accountable. So the failure to
00:02:27.160 | speak wisely when we know more will receive a greater judgment. So this is
00:02:33.440 | Luke 12.47. The servant who knew his master's will but did not get ready or
00:02:40.440 | act according to his will will receive a severe beating, and the one who did not
00:02:45.760 | know did what deserved a beating will receive a light beating. And here comes
00:02:51.600 | the principle. Everyone to whom much is given, of him much will be required, and
00:02:59.840 | from him to whom they entrusted much they will demand the more. So behind this
00:03:06.760 | statement about teaching being judged with greater judgment is teachers--I'm
00:03:12.280 | just thinking of myself here--I probably study the Bible more than any of my
00:03:17.160 | people. So I'm being given much. I know much, I feel much, and I'm responsible to
00:03:24.840 | say much, and therefore the likelihood that I will not live up to this much or
00:03:29.880 | teach faithfully this much is very great, and therefore my judgment will be
00:03:35.600 | greater. That's principle number two. Now applied to teaching
00:03:41.520 | explicitly, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3, if anyone builds on the
00:03:50.120 | foundation with gold, silver, precious stones--that's building on the foundation
00:03:55.360 | of Christ with good teaching--or he might build with wood, hay, and straw, each one's
00:04:02.880 | work will become manifest, for the day will disclose it, and it will be revealed
00:04:08.880 | by fire. Fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that
00:04:15.280 | anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If
00:04:20.800 | anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be
00:04:27.320 | saved, but only as through fire. So the picture there is, teachers can build
00:04:33.920 | with wood, hay, and stubble, teachers can build with silver, gold, and precious
00:04:39.640 | stone, and the one will be burned up and the other will be preserved for his
00:04:44.520 | reward, and the more you know, the more you will be held accountable, and the
00:04:50.560 | more you blow it, given that knowledge, the more you will suffer loss. Now those
00:04:58.240 | are the principles. What this person seems to be asking is, "Okay, I hear you
00:05:02.800 | saying that, but I thought we were justified by faith. I thought from work, though. You
00:05:07.160 | seem to be saying that judgment is according to some kind of works." And the
00:05:12.680 | answer to that is that justification by faith alone and judgment according to
00:05:19.840 | works are not contradictory. They're both taught in the New Testament.
00:05:24.480 | Justification on the basis of faith alone means that we trust Christ alone,
00:05:30.280 | and God views us in our union with Christ through faith as having Christ's
00:05:37.360 | perfect righteousness, and thus accepts us into his just and holy favor, and then
00:05:44.880 | we are, according to Ephesians 8-10, saved for good works. And the function of those
00:05:52.600 | good works is not to earn our acceptance or our eternal life, but to demonstrate
00:05:59.560 | our acceptance and our newness and our faith and our life that we have within
00:06:05.360 | us. I think, Tony, one of the best illustrations that I've seen in the
00:06:11.080 | Bible that I've ever come up with to help me distinguish between how works
00:06:15.240 | show that we're justified or born again or have true faith and how they produce
00:06:21.520 | it is the time when the two prostitutes came with the living baby to Solomon and
00:06:29.480 | said--both of them said, "This is my baby! This is my baby!" We both had a baby, and
00:06:34.200 | one of them said, "She killed my baby, and then she stole my baby!"
00:06:40.600 | And, "I want my baby back!" And Solomon doesn't know which is the true mother
00:06:45.720 | here, and so he comes up with this wise statement. He says, "Okay, let's cut the
00:06:51.840 | baby in half, and each of you can have half the baby." And the true mother says,
00:06:56.880 | "Don't kill the baby! She can have the baby!" And the other mother says, "That's fine." And
00:07:02.920 | Solomon says, "Okay, now we know who the mother is." Now, when that woman said, "Don't
00:07:08.560 | kill the baby," that didn't make her the mother. It just showed she was the mother.
00:07:13.840 | That's the difference between a work revealing our new birth and our
00:07:19.840 | justification and a work causing. She didn't become the mother by saying, "This
00:07:25.280 | is my baby." She just proved she was the mother by saying, "This is my baby." So we
00:07:32.920 | have to go to the New Testament and let the judgment according to works stand.
00:07:38.240 | Romans 14, 12, "Each of us will give an account of himself to God." Second
00:07:43.680 | Corinthians 5, 10, "We must appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each
00:07:47.720 | one may receive what is due for what he's done in the body, whether good or
00:07:53.480 | evil." Or Ephesians 6, 8, "Knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive
00:07:59.040 | back from the Lord." There's a correlation between the rewards that we will have in
00:08:04.960 | the age to come and the fruit of our faith here called good deeds. And that
00:08:12.640 | doesn't mean that our justification or our acceptance is based upon our works.
00:08:18.560 | It simply means that these works are displaying our trust in God for our
00:08:25.160 | justification, and as displays, they are fitting us to have greater or lesser joy
00:08:32.080 | in the presence of God forever. Amen. Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for
00:08:38.080 | listening to this podcast. Please email your questions to us at
00:08:40.960 | askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org. At DesiringGod.org you'll find thousands of other free
00:08:44.600 | resources from John Piper. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening.
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