judgement/and works a relationship

from comment 48 here: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2012/11/how-the-church-won-an-interview-with-jason-stellman/#comment-39984

If you like, I could adduce dozens of NT passages that draw an explicitly causal connection between our Spirit-wrought works and our receiving the eternal kingdom on the last day. Can you think of a single one that says that on the day of judgment God will receive us irrespective of our works, but because of the imputation of Christ’s active and passive obedience?

(And no fair listing passages that any Catholic would heartily embrace without also showing that they necessitate the Reformed understanding of imputation.)

from comment 15 here http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2014/05/trent-and-the-gospel-a-reply-to-tim-challies/#comment-87566

I’m still a little fuzzy on how the Catholic position accounts for the eschatological weight that Paul puts on justification while also maintaining distinctions between initial and final justification. For the Reformed, justification is eschatological in the sense that is an intrusion of judgment day into history, pronouncing that the believer will be found just on the Final Day. Clearly the Catholic position is different! Would you mind explaining the points of difference as it relates to justification and eschatology in RC thought?

I’ve explained the problem with the proleptic declaration position in comment #161 of the “From Calvin to the Barque of Peter” thread, in comment #687 of the “How John Calvin Made Me Catholic” thread, and in comment #32 of the “St. Augustine on Faith Without Love” thread.

As for the Catholic doctrine, the Catholic position differs, in part, from the proleptic declaration position in the way I described in comment #691 of the “How John Calvin Made Me Catholic” thread. One’s present justification status depends on whether one is presently in a state of grace; one’s present justification is not a proleptic declaration by God already giving the final verdict that will be pronounced on Judgment Day. That would be presumption, because then, as soon as we came to know that we are presently justified, we would immediately know that we are elect-for-glory. But apart from a special (private) revelation, we do not know that we are elect-for-glory, because the apostolic deposit does not include a list of the names of those elect-for-glory. (See Canon 16 of Trent VI.) For those having lived and died in a state of grace, final justification is not based on extra nos imputation, but on the truth concerning our actual lives (thoughts, words, deeds), as St. Paul says:

we know that the judgment of God is according to the truth” [κρίμα τοῦ θεοῦ ἐστιν κατὰ ἀλήθειαν]. (Romans 2:2)

He is referring there to the Day of Judgment, when God sees the heart of every man, and nothing is hidden from His sight, and every man receives his reward from God, according to what he has done in the flesh, whether good or evil. Jesus spoke of this uncovering of all that is hidden, in Matt 10:26, and in Mark 4:22, and in Luke 8:17 and 12:2. And St. Paul himself says, in a passage that is remarkably parallel to Romans 2:

Therefore do not go on passing judgment before the time, but wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men’s hearts; and then each man’s praise will come to him from God. (1 Cor 4:5)

And again:

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. (2 Cor 5:10)

The one who sows to the Spirit shall from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we shall reap if we do not grow weary. (Gal 6:8-9)

The author of the letter to the Hebrews says something quite similar:

And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. (Heb 4:13)

And John writes in Revelation:

Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done. (Rev. 22:12)

This is the meaning of the judgment of God on the Day of Judgment, to which St. Paul refers in Romans 2:2. St. Paul says that God will give to each man according to works, those who persevere in doing good will receive the reward of “eternal life:”

For He will render to every man according to his works, to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life. (Romans 2:6-7)

He refers to the Judgment again in Rom 2:11, where he says that there is no partiality [προσωπολημψία] with God. He is saying that on that Day, God will show no partiality. But He will judge according to the truth, according to what we truly are, what we have thought, and said (Matt 12:37), and done. Being a Jew will not allow anyone to hide any sins on that Day. That is what he is saying in Rom 2:12, when he says:

For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law, and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law.”

He is saying that we will be judged according to the standard we know. The Gentiles, who have the moral law given to them by conscience, will be judged according to that law, not according to the Mosaic Law. The Jew, however, who has (in addition to the moral law known by reason) the divine Law that was given specially to Moses, will be judged by that [Mosaic] Law.

In Rom 2:13, St. Paul is still speaking about Judgment Day, explaining that it will be of no use on that Day of Judgment to have received the Law of Moses, if one only hears it and does not do it. That’s what he means when he says:

“for it is not the hearers of the law who are just before God [δίκαιοι παρὰ [τῷ] θεῷ], but the doers of the Law will be justified [δικαιωθήσονται.].” (Rom 2:13)

This is what Jesus Himself said in John 5:29, when He said, “those who did the good deeds [will be raised] to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.” Similarly, St. Paul here in Romans 2 says that on that Day, it will be the doers of the law (not those who hear but do not do) who will be “just before God,” and so will be found by God to be just. The God who is Truth, and who judges only according to the truth (Rom 2:2), will disclose the hearts of men, bring everything to light, and judge those persons to be actually righteous who have actually fulfilled the law. Truth Himself will reveal the doers of the law to be doers of the law, to be law-keepers, and not law-breakers. He will, by uncovering everything, show them to be actually righteous.

It was this fact about the gospel, that we will stand before the Judgment seat of Christ, and all that we have thought, said, and done will be revealed, and those found to be righteous will enter into eternal life, and those found to be unrighteous into eternal damnation, that frightened Felix and caused him to send St. Paul away, when St. Paul was preaching the gospel to him. (Acts 24:25) The gospel is not a way to avoid Judgment, or hide behind an extra nos imputed righteousness, as though the Creator and Judge is not the same God as the Savior (ala Marcion). The gospel is that by which through the infusion of sanctifying grace and agape, we are actually and truly made righteous, such that should we persevere in grace, then on Judgment Day, our thoughts, words, and deeds truly will be deserving of eternal life, and of Christ’s “well done, good and faithful servant.”

Many more such passages can be found in the “V. Scripture on Merit” section of our “The Doctrine of Merit” article.

end of quote.

Also here:
"Certainly it is of faith that there is a particular judgment, and that every man, at the instant of his soul’s departure from the body, appears before the tribunal of God to hear his eternal sentence pronounced. Yet this judgment cannot suffice, and it is essential that it should be followed by another public judgment, in which God will not examine the actions in isolation and taken in themselves, but will examine them in their effects upon other men, in the good or evil deriving from them for families and peoples—in a word, in the consequences they produced and which those who perpetrated them ought to have foreseen." Fr. Charles Arminjon, p. 94  from the book The End of the Present World