Romans 2:6

“[God,] who will repay each one according to his works.”

Romans 2:6

Context

Romans 2:6 stands at the heart of Paul’s opening argument. In chapter 1 he has portrayed the sinful condition of the Gentiles, who could recognise God from creation but failed to honour him rightly (Rom 1:19–23). In chapter 2 he turns against everyone who passes judgment on others without standing the test himself: “You condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practise the very same things” (Rom 2:1). In the midst of this sharp address to the morally self-righteous, v. 6 formulates the decisive principle of God’s judgment — the principle that binds all equally, without partiality.

In the wider context (Rom 2:7–11) Paul unfolds the twofold consequence of this principle: eternal life for those who, by patiently doing good, seek glory and honour and immortality; but wrath and distress for every soul that does evil, “the Jew first and also the Greek” (vv. 9–10). The concluding sentence in v. 11 sums up: “For God shows no partiality.” Paul’s judgment is at once universal and individual — it binds all, but each according to his own deed.

Striking is the direct line back to the Old Testament. In v. 6 Paul quotes almost verbatim from Psalm 62:13 (LXX 61:13: sý apodôseis hekástô katá tá érga autou) and Proverbs 24:12. He thereby positions himself not as an innovator but as a witness to a continuous biblical topos: the measure of God’s judgment is each person’s own deed. The same line emerges in Jeremiah 17:10, Ezekiel 18 and in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 16:27 again quotes Ps 62:13 verbatim).

Within the Letter to the Romans the verse’s position is decisive: Paul formulates his judgment principle three chapters before he presents the Adam–Christ comparison in 5:12–21. Anyone who reads Rom 5:12 in an Augustinian sense (as a juridical imputation of Adam’s guilt to all his descendants) must explain how Paul can also teach Rom 2:6 without contradiction. The causal, Socinian reading of Rom 5:12 (cf. Romans 5:12) is the only one that preserves this coherence.

The Socinian Core Reading

The Socinian reading takes Rom 2:6 seriously as the key sentence of Paul’s anthropology and soteriology: God repays each one according to his own works. The word hekástô (dative singular, “to each one”) is individual and admits of no exception. The word autou (genitive singular, “his”) denotes the deed proper to each, not the deed of another. A guilt that reaches me by way of imputation across generations is not mine; a righteousness charged to me from a foreign merit is likewise not mine. Both contradict the Pauline principle of judgment.

The hermeneutical consequence is far-reaching. The apostle himself formulates in Rom 2:6 a standard against which all his other statements must be measured. Whoever reads Rom 5:12 as a text of inherited guilt (Adam’s guilt charged to all) and Rom 4:3 as a doctrine of imputation (Christ’s righteousness forensically reckoned to all believers) puts Paul into irresolvable contradiction with himself. Rom 2:6 functions as the hermeneutical lock clause: whatever cannot be reconciled with this verse cannot be Pauline doctrine.

In a Socinian frame the verse is not understood as an isolated statement but as a tying-back to the Torah and the prophets. Deut 24:16, Jeremiah 31:29–30 and Ezekiel 18:4, 20 teach with the same sharpness: personal guilt presupposes personal deed. Paul does not stand against this line but within it. His gospel of justification does not seek to abolish the Torah principle but to bring it to fulfilment under the new covenant, by enabling, through Christ, the turn toward one’s own righteousness.

The apparent tension between works and faith, which some Reformed exegesis has read into Paul, is thereby resolved. Rom 2:6 shows that works are genuinely relevant to salvation for Paul — not in the sense of a meritorious purchase of salvation, but in the sense of the discernible, judgeable fruit of faith. Faith itself is deed (cf. Jas 2:17; Rom 1:5: hypakoê písteôs, “the obedience of faith”); its authenticity is shown precisely in those works according to which God will repay.

Exegesis: Key Terms and Word Field

Three philologically central terms decide the interpretation of Rom 2:6 and show the structural incompatibility with any doctrine of generational imputation of guilt:

apodôsei — “he will repay”

The verb apodídômi denotes in Greek the giving back of what is owed: wages, payment, recompense in a juridical sense. Paul uses the future indicative active third singular (apodôsei), which announces the act of divine judgment as a future, certain event. It is not about an ethical maxim but about an act of God at the final judgment.

Significant is the choice of the medial form over against the simple dôsei (“he will give”). The prefix apo- makes recompense a returning of what is owed; it is not a free gift but the just answer to a given deed. Recompense in God’s judicial act is therefore structurally bound to the person’s deed. A recompense given to someone whose deed does not belong to him would be a logical contradiction within the concept itself.

In the Septuagint apodídômi regularly translates the Hebrew shillem (“requite, pay back”) and gāmal (“deal with, requite”). The Hebrew vocabulary of recompense is consistently individual: Ps 62:13 (“you will repay each one according to his work”), Prov 24:12, Ezek 7:27 and 9:10. Paul adopts this language not by accident but with full awareness of its Old Testament imprint.

hekástô — “to each one”

Hekástô is the dative singular of hékastos, “each individually.” The pronoun is marked in Greek: it does not designate a collective group (for which pántes would stand) but the individual subject, addressed singly. Paul thereby stresses that judgment falls on each human being individually, not as a member of a group or a line of descent.

The structural consequence is considerable. A doctrine of original sin that extends Adam’s guilt collectively to all his descendants would be linguistically incompatible with hekástô. Adam’s deed is Adam’s deed; it is not hekástou hamártêma, “the sin of each one.” Paul formulates with surgical precision: what is repaid is what each individual has done himself.

Paul uses precisely this pronoun also in 2 Cor 5:10 (“so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done”) and Gal 6:4–5 (“for each will have to bear his own load”). The consistency of the vocabulary is decisive: wherever Paul speaks of divine judgment, it is consistently judgment of the individual according to his own deed.

katá tá érga autou — “according to his works”

The preposition katá with the accusative denotes in Greek the norm or measure by which something occurs: “according to,” “corresponding to,” “in agreement with.” Paul thereby defines the measure-logic of divine judgment: judgment is given according to an objectively existing reference point — and this reference point is tá érga autou, one’s own works.

The possessive pronoun autou is the hermeneutical key word of the entire verse. It makes the works unmistakably the works of just this one subject. Adam’s works are Adam’s works; Christ’s works are Christ’s works; my works are my works. A forensic imputation of foreign works (whether Adam’s guilt to me, or Christ’s righteousness to me) contradicts the possessive root logic of the verse.

The plural érga (“works”) is further significant: it is not about a single deed but about the whole of a life, the sum of the actions that make up the ethical-religious profile of a person. The verse thus widens from an isolated deed to a judgment of conduct — but always autou, of one’s own conduct.

Comparison of Interpretations

Connection to Fausto Sozzini

In his treatise “On Justification (De iustificatione),” Fausto Sozzini treats the principle of judgment — to each according to his works — explicitly as the Pauline central testimony against the doctrine of original sin. In a dialogue between John and Christopher he develops the doctrine of personal guilt in sharp distinction from the Augustinian tradition; his central argument: God himself, in the Torah and through Paul, has confirmed that each one answers for his own deed.

That fiction of original sin or of the guilt of parents is a Jewish fable …. It would be unjust that we should pay the penalty for what we have not sinned, since God himself has affirmed that the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, but each one shall die in his own guilt …. For this reason Paul also, when by reason, experience and the testimonies of Scripture he convicted both Jews and Gentiles of sin, did not charge them with the sin of their parents or of Adam or with a corrupted nature, but reckoned the guilt to those very ones who sinned.

Fausto Sozzini, On Justification (De iustificatione), Dialogue between John and Christopher, section ‘Grace of God, sin, and rejection of original sin’

The quotation shows the inner logic of the Socinian argument. Sozzini does not start from a dogmatic prior decision but from a theological self-testimony of God: in the Torah (Deut 24:16) and through the prophets (Ezek 18:20; Jer 31:29–30) God has expressly affirmed that the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father. Rom 2:6 is the Pauline repetition and confirmation of this principle: if God binds himself to this rule, he cannot reverse it in his saving action without contradicting himself.

Noteworthy is Sozzini’s observation on Paul’s argumentative procedure in Rom 1–3. Paul convicts “Jews and Gentiles” of sin — but he does so not by appeal to an inherited nature but by concrete charge of actual deeds. The Gentiles are accused because they did not rightly use God’s creation revelation (Rom 1:19; Acts 14:17; 17:26); the Jews because they had the Law and yet transgressed (Rom 2:17; 3:13). In not a single passage of this indictment is Adam cited or a hereditary guilt-nature posited. Paul’s very strategy of indictment tells against the doctrine of original sin.

The Racovian Catechism — the chief dogmatic summary of the Polish Brethren — develops the same logic in a Christological turn: Racovian Catechism, chapter ‘On the session of Christ at the right hand of God and his power’ — “For he has been appointed judge of the living and the dead, who shall repay each one according to his works; therefore so great a wisdom has also been given to him that he can search hearts and minds and judge all by the secrets of the heart.” Christ himself enters as the judge who judges precisely by the Pauline principle of Rom 2:6 — not by inherited imputation but by the works of each one, tested by what is hidden in the heart. Socinian Christology thus links eschatological judgment directly to the Pauline principle of individualisation.

In the section on original sin and free will the Catechism formulates the theological background still more sharply: Racovian Catechism, chapter ‘Original sin and free will’ — “By the fall of Adam the nature of man has by no means been so corrupted that he has been deprived, in what God requires of him …, of freedom and the power of decision to obey God or not to obey. … And the fall of Adam, since it was a single act, could not have the power to corrupt the nature of Adam, let alone the nature of his descendants.” This creation-theological and anthropological statement is the precondition of Paul’s judicial logic: only one who can act freely can be judged personally — and only one who is judged personally is actually repaid according to his own works.

Finally Sozzini makes the soteriological scope of the principle visible: if to each one is repaid according to his works, then Christ’s salvation comes not as a forensic transfer of status between persons but as a real transformation of life in each individual. His second citation in the same section shows this practical dimension: Fausto Sozzini, On Justification (De iustificatione), section ‘Justification through the blood of Christ’ — “Those, therefore, who believe that Christ shed his blood and died for this reason, that they too should die to sin and live and serve God in the hope of attaining eternal life — these cease from evil and do good. Therefore of such it is said that they are washed by the blood of Christ, redeemed and justified by his death.” Works are not a competing way of salvation alongside faith but the indispensable fruit by which faith will be judged — precisely according to Rom 2:6.

Overview of the writings of Sozzini

Logical Arguments

From the Greek wording, Paul’s usage and the overall context of Scripture, the following arguments emerge for the Socinian reading of Rom 2:6 as a foundational principle of judgment:

1. Argument from the OT quotation line. Rom 2:6 quotes almost verbatim from Psalm 62:13 LXX and Proverbs 24:12. Both Old Testament passages are individualistically formulated (katá tá érga autou) and stand in the context of God’s righteousness as judge of all. If Paul takes up these passages without modification, he also adopts their individualistic logic. A reinterpretation in the sense of original sin or imputation would have required modifications that Paul does not make.
2. Argument from Pauline consistency. Paul formulates the same principle as in Rom 2:6 also in 2 Cor 5:10 (“so that each may receive for what he has done in the body”) and Gal 6:5 (“for each will have to bear his own load”). The threefold attestation in three different letters excludes the possibility that this is an isolated or improperly used statement. It is a Pauline first principle.
3. Argument from hekástô. The pronoun “to each one” is individualising, not collective. A doctrine of original sin that transfers Adam’s guilt to all is incompatible with this language. Paul would have had to say pásin hôs en Adám (“to all, as in Adam”) if he wished to teach a collective imputation of guilt — but precisely that he does not do.
4. Argument from autou. The possessive pronoun makes the works unmistakably those of the subject himself. A forensic imputation of foreign works (Adam’s guilt to me or Christ’s righteousness to me) violates the possessive root logic. What is reckoned to me without being mine is not mine — and so cannot, by Pauline measure, be the ground of judgment.
5. Argument from the verse’s position in Romans. Paul formulates his judgment principle three chapters before the Adam–Christ comparison. Whoever reads Rom 5:12 in Augustinian fashion places Paul in direct contradiction to Rom 2:6. Since Rom 2:6 is set up as a foundational principle, Rom 5:12 must be interpreted in its light (cf. Romans 5:12) — not the other way around.
6. Argument from divine self-binding. What God has named in the Torah (Deut 24:16) and through the prophets (Ezek 18:4, 20; Jer 31:29–30) as his own rule also binds him in his saving action. An imputation of guilt from Adam to all descendants would force God to a double standard: one rule for the human forum, another for his own court. That contradicts his nature.
7. Argument from katá with the accusative. The preposition denotes a measure. Recompense “according to works” presupposes that the works exist and belong to the person in question. A guilt (original sin) or righteousness (forensic imputation) reckoned in advance of any deed has no measure-character left — it is static, not responsive. But Paul speaks of a dynamic, responsive judgment.
8. Argument from Rom 2:11. The concluding sentence of the section (“for God shows no partiality”) reinforces the individualistic reading. A God who reckons Adam’s guilt to all would in fact judge according to partiality of person — namely according to the person of the patriarch, not according to one’s own. The abolition of partiality of person includes also the abolition of partiality toward the patriarch.
9. Argument from Christological application. The Racovian Catechism shows: if Christ is appointed as the judge who judges according to Rom 2:6, then his saving work is not the suspension but the enablement of personal righteousness. Christ’s work creates the condition in which human beings can truly do good works that are then rewarded according to Rom 2:6 — not a substitute righteousness that makes judgment by works superfluous.

Biblical Cross-References

The following passages unfold the principle of Rom 2:6 across the whole biblical witness and show its continuous line from the Torah to Revelation:

Psalm 62:12 — “you will repay each one according to his work”

In Rom 2:6 Paul quotes almost verbatim from Psalm 62:12 (LXX 61:13). The psalm praises God as refuge and rock and grounds this confidence precisely in God’s just, individual judicial action. The psalmist finds security not in a collective covering but in the personal righteousness of God — and his trust is that each one is treated exactly according to his own deed.

Deuteronomy 24:16 — prohibition of generational punishment

The Torah sets the principle of judgment in positive law: “Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor shall children be put to death for their fathers; each one shall be put to death for his own sin.” What God lifts up as the norm in human law binds his own judicial action. Rom 2:6 is the Pauline application of this Torah principle to the final judgment. Cf. Deuteronomy 24:16.

Ezekiel 18:4, 20 — “the soul that sins shall die”

Ezekiel unfolds the Torah principle prophetically in its sharpest form. Ezek 18 explicitly refutes the proverb of generational imputation (“The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge”) and places individual judgment at the centre. Rom 2:6 stands in precisely this prophetic line. Cf. Ezekiel 18:20.

Jeremiah 17:10 — “I give to every man according to his ways”

Jeremiah formulates the principle of judgment in the direct first-person speech of God: “I, the LORD, search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.” Paul takes up this language; the Racovian Catechism transfers it Christologically to Christ as the judge, who likewise “searches hearts and minds and is able to judge all by the secrets of the heart.”

2 Corinthians 5:10 — before the judgment seat of Christ

“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.” Paul formulates here the same principle as in Rom 2:6, now in eschatologically sharpened form: hekástos is judged according to his own bodily actions. The pronoun autou is the key in both passages.

Galatians 6:4–5 — “each will have to bear his own load”

“But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbour. For each will have to bear his own load.” Paul reinforces the principle of personal responsibility even in the ethical everyday of the community. The terms ídion phortíon bastásei are unequivocal: no transfer, no substitution, no imputation.

Matthew 16:27 — the word of the Son of Man

“For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of his Father … and then he will repay each one according to what he has done.” Jesus himself takes up Psalm 62:12 again and presents his own final judgment as application of this principle. This links Rom 2:6 with the words of the Lord himself and makes it a Christologically central article of teaching.

Revelation 22:12 — “my reward is with me”

“Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my reward with me, to repay each one for what he has done.” The Risen One himself formulates the eschatological application of the principle. The canonical Bible thus brackets the principle of judgment from Psalm 62 to Revelation 22 and identifies it as a central article of biblical theology — an article with which the doctrine of original sin remains structurally incompatible.

Objections and Socinian Answers

Objection 1: Rom 2:6 speaks of earthly works, not of the judgment of salvation

The separation between a “general” and a “salvation-specific” sphere of judgment is not found in the text itself. Paul formulates the principle in Rom 2:6 without restriction and unfolds it in vv. 7–11 explicitly as the principle of the final judgment of salvation (eternal life for some, wrath for the others). It is precisely what the tradition itself calls the “last judgment.”

The construction of a double-standard theology (earthly works for the one judgment, forensic imputation for the other) is not biblically tenable. Christ himself takes up this principle in Matt 16:27 and Rev 22:12 and applies it to his final judgment. The canonical line is clear: the judgment by works is the judgment of salvation.

In a Socinian frame the tension is resolved differently: Christ’s work does not create a substitute righteousness, but the condition of possibility of genuine righteousness in the human being. The works according to which God will repay are not autonomous merits but the fruits of the new conduct of life made possible by Christ’s saving act. Faith and works are not alternatives, but the inner and outer sides of the same process.

Finally: the Reformation doctrine of imputation is not the only model by which Paul’s saving work can be understood. The theology of the early church knew more varied models (theosis, liberation soteriology, Christus victor); Rom 2:6 compels a personally transformative soteriology in which God’s judgment looks seriously at the actual conduct of life.

Objection 2: If Rom 2:6 is the norm, no one is saved, for all have sinned

The objection overlooks the circle of addressees: Rom 2:6 speaks of the final judgment, which also applies to the redeemed — not however as condemnation, but as measurement. There is for believers too a judgment by works (cf. 2 Cor 5:10; 1 Cor 3:12–15), in which their works are tested and weighed. The question is therefore not whether works are judged but how the result turns out.

For the Socinians the resolution is clear: through forgiveness and renewal Christ enables a life that can stand before the principle of judgment in Rom 2:6. The works of believers are not perfect works, but works of repentance, of the obedience of faith, of lived sanctification. God reckons these works not as a meritorious equivalent, but judges them by his grace as sufficient for the salvation of those who truly follow him.

The universal lostness apart from Christ (Rom 3:23) is not weakened in a Socinian frame but confirmed: without Christ’s saving act no one would in fact be saved, because no one alone can meet the measure of judgment in Rom 2:6. But Christ’s mediation does not change the principle; it opens a path on which the principle can be fulfilled — through repentance, faith and lived obedience.

Sozzini himself formulates pointedly in On Justification: “God looks not so much on the work itself as on the disposition of the man, who would at once do all that pleases God if it were in his power.” The judgment according to Rom 2:6 is therefore not a juridical letter-judgment but a judgment of the heart — yet remains strictly individual, related to one’s own attitude of life.

Objection 3: Paul himself teaches in Rom 4 justification by faith without works

The supposed self-correction would be a heavy hermeneutical liability. It is methodologically inadmissible to make an apostle contradict himself within two chapters when a coherent reading of both passages is possible. Precisely such a coherent reading is offered by Socinian hermeneutics: Rom 4 does not speak of a fictive reckoning of what is absent but of the recognition of faith as a reality that shapes the life of salvation of its bearer.

Sozzini is here very precise: “What is reckoned to us by God is what is actually in us, not something that would be absent from us or in another — namely that we have firmly resolved in our heart, without doubting the promises of God …, to run the appointed contest of faith.” Reckoning here is not juridical fiction (something is reckoned to me that is not mine) but recognition of a real inner condition.

Rom 4 and Rom 2:6 are coherent as soon as “works” in Paul is understood rightly. In Rom 4 Paul rejects the érga nómou (works of the law in the sense of marks of national identity: circumcision, food laws, Sabbath) as a way of salvation. In Rom 2:6 he speaks of tá érga autou, the ethical-religious conduct of life of each individual. The two terms are not identical.

This differentiation is broadly recognised in modern Pauline research (E. P. Sanders, J. D. G. Dunn, N. T. Wright). The old polemic “works against faith” is a Reformation narrowing; Paul himself does not know it. For Paul faith is an act of life that necessarily comes to fruit in works; the final judgment measures this fruit. Rom 2:6 and Rom 4 are not played off against one another but represent the two sides of the same saving event.

Objection 4: Without Adam’s imputation the universality of sin is not explained

The premise that an empirical universality demands an ontological explanation is not philosophically compelling. A universal fact can also be explained by universal circumstances without postulating an inherited change of substance. Every human being is born into a mortal world marked by temptations; every one in fact fails in it. The universality is explained without having to postulate a substantial inherited guilt.

The Racovian Catechism formulates this position precisely: “We do not deny, however, that the nature of human beings, through the constancy of sinning, is afflicted with a certain stain and an exceedingly great inclination to sin; but we deny that this is sin in itself.” There is an empirically describable inclination to sin — from habit, upbringing, cultural shaping, creaturely weakness — but this inclination is not itself sin, but the condition of personal temptation.

With this differentiation Rom 3:23 (“all are sinners”) remains intact as an empirical observation, without having to postulate an ontological theory of original sin. Paul says: all have sinned (aorist hémarton, a concrete universality of deed), not: all are born as sinners (which would be an ontological universality of status). Pauline language confirms the Socinian reading.

The soteriological consequence: the universality of sin does indeed require universal need of salvation, but not an imputed inherited guilt. Christ saves not from a fictive imputation situation but from a real history of deeds. This is more pastorally and theologically consistent: it places responsibility where it belongs — in one’s own conduct of life — and makes Christ’s salvation a real liberation instead of a fictive shift of status.

Objection 5: If God judges by works, grace is abolished

The objection presupposes a sharp opposition between grace and works that is not found in Paul himself. Paul sets not “grace against works,” but “grace against righteousness of the Law” and “grace against self-boasting.” Rom 4:4 (“to the one who works, the wages are not reckoned according to grace but according to obligation”) is aimed at the attitude of the works-accountant, not at the reality of good works themselves.

Sozzini himself sees and answers this objection precisely. He asks: “But that grace seems to me not to be grace but merit, since it is granted to those who keep the commandments?” And he answers: “On the contrary, this is an outstanding grace of God; for that faith is not so great that it would deserve such excellent rewards. Rather, God’s grace is so great that he wills to save us for the sake of this very thing, however slight it may finally be.”

The resolution is therefore clear: works do not create an equivalence with salvation; they are the condition to which God, out of pure grace, attaches his salvation. The works are small compared with the reward; the reward is great compared with the works. That very thing is grace. Rom 2:6 does not teach that grace is earned by works, but that grace does not become effective without works — a crucial difference.

The Pauline line is consistent: Rom 1:5 calls the goal of the apostolic mission hypakoê písteôs (“the obedience of faith”) — a phrase in which faith and works are inseparably bound together. Rom 2:6 makes explicit what this obedience of faith means in the final judgment: God tests the reality of this obedience without raising it to a juridical equivalence-payment. The Socinian position is no hidden works-righteousness but the consistent Pauline synthesis of faith and work.

Theological Consequences

Related Verses

The following passages support, deepen or contrast the interpretation presented here:

• Deuteronomy 24:16 — Torah norm of individual guilt: what God forbids in human law applies also to his judgment.
• Ezekiel 18:20 — prophetic unfolding: “The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father.”
• Romans 5:12 — Adam as entrance into the condition, not as juridical source of guilt — causal reading of eph’ hô.
• 2 Chronicles 25:4 — King Amaziah concretely applies the Torah norm of individual punishment.
• James 1:14–15 — sin from personal desire, not from inherited disposition.
• Ezekiel 18:20 — mirror-image formulation of the Pauline principle of judgment.

Summary

Romans 2:6 formulates Paul’s principle of judgment in precise form: God repays each one according to his own works. The verse stands in direct line with Psalm 62:12, Proverbs 24:12, Ezekiel 18 and Jeremiah 17:10 — a continuous biblical tradition of judgment that places the individual as the bearer of personal responsibility at the centre. Paul takes up this tradition without modification and makes it the measure of his entire doctrine of salvation and judgment.

For Socinian theology Rom 2:6 is the hermeneutical lock clause against any doctrine of a juridical imputation of guilt or righteousness. The doctrine of original sin, which charges Adam’s transgression to all his descendants as their own, contradicts the structure of hekástô katá tá érga autou. Likewise a forensic doctrine of imputation, which reckons Christ’s righteousness without real transformation, contradicts the possessive logic of the verse. Fausto Sozzini in On Justification and the Racovian Catechism formulate this position with theological maturity.

The soteriological consequence is not works-righteousness but a faith-obedient anthropology: God’s grace in Christ enables the life that can stand before the judgment of Rom 2:6. Works are not merit but fruit; not the way of salvation but its sign; not equivalence but recognition of a real inner condition. Christ is not the substitute for the judgment by works, but its enabler — and at the end himself the judge who will repay each one according to his works.