When I heard Elder David A. Bednar’s October 2025 conference talk, I was immediately struck by how important his central question is. It’s a question that every human being must face sooner or later: How can we stand before the judgment bar of God “with eager and hopeful anticipation instead of [] fear”? It’s hard to imagine a more vital question—or one with higher stakes.
Elder Bednar’s answer, in effect, is that we must use our moral agency to do good—and that if we do good works, we can be confident before God:
“If our desires have been to righteousness and our works good … then the judgment bar of God will be pleasing.”
Elder Bednar quotes a verse from the Book of Mormon that emphasizes a similar point:
“[S]ee that you are merciful unto your brethren; deal justly, judge righteously, and do good continually; and if ye do all these things then shall ye receive your reward” (Alma 41:14).
Notice the very explicit if–then language in these verses. It is only if we successfully keep these requirements that we can then hope for a reward and for a pleasing verdict from God.
If we’re honest, this should sober all of us. If eternal life depends on how well we’ve lived or repented, that’s not good news—it’s devastating.
In Romans 3, the Apostle Paul diagnosed the dire condition that all mankind is in if we rely on our own righteousness or moral performance to justify us before God:
“There is no one righteous, not even one;
there is no one who understands;
there is no one who seeks God.
All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good, not even one.…
Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.” (Romans 3:10–12, 20)
Paul’s point wasn’t only about the Mosaic law—it was about any system where human obedience is the basis of justification. The message is clear: if we are judged based on how well we’ve kept God’s laws and been good people, then we are all failures, liars, and lawbreakers.
Elder Bednar seems to offer a ray of hope when he mentions that “our sins and wicked deeds will not stand against us if we are truly born again, exercise faith in the Redeemer, repent with sincerity of heart, and endure to the end.”
Yet he seems to pull back from that hope, emphasizing that every person will still be accountable for every thought, word, and deed:
“Every man and woman will be accountable for his own thoughts, words, and actions in the day of judgment.”
Elder Bednar goes even further, teaching that in a sense we will be our own judges. That idea fits the broader Latter-day Saint view that judgment is primarily about who we have become. But the Bible presents a different picture: God Himself is the Judge, and our hope rests not in how accurately we can assess our worthiness but in the verdict He pronounces over us because of Christ. As Jesus said, “Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life; he does not come into judgment but has passed from death to life” (John 5:24).
The danger of relying on our own self-assessment is made clear by Jesus Himself. He warned of many who will one day stand before Him and say, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?”—yet He will declare to them, “I never knew you; depart from me” (Matthew 7:22–23). These were people utterly convinced of their own righteousness and that their deeds had been good. They judged themselves worthy, but God’s verdict was different.
Our hope can never rest in what we think of ourselves or even in what we have done in Christ’s name—it must rest in what Christ has done for us.
Elder Bednar is right to take sin and obedience seriously. The problem is not that he cares too much about righteousness, but that he grounds our assurance in our righteousness rather than Christ’s. In practice, his message leaves us with the burden of doing more and trying harder, because our standing before God ultimately depends on what we have done.
But that is the opposite of the biblical response. No one can be justified by doing the works of the law. Our only hope is a righteousness that is not our own—the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ that we receive through faith in Him.
“But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.” (Romans 3:21–22)
If we stand before God relying on who we have become, we have reason to fear. But if we stand clothed in Christ’s perfect righteousness, we can have joy and confidence. On the cross, Jesus took the punishment we deserved and gave us the righteousness we could never earn.
As Paul wrote elsewhere, in Christ God was “not counting people’s sins against them” (2 Corinthians 5:19). He has freed us from the terrifying weight of judgment. The cross is where Jesus took the punishment we deserved and gave us the perfect righteousness we could not earn. This great exchange is the answer to how we can stand before God with confidence.
Many Latter-day Saints I know sincerely want to follow Jesus. My concern is not with that desire, but with where we find our confidence—whether in Christ’s finished work or in our unfinished efforts.
I urge everyone reading this to rely solely on the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ, who died for our sins and took them upon Himself. Trust in His finished work and His righteousness, which makes it possible for God to be both just and the justifier of the one who believes in Jesus (Romans 3:26).
When I stand before God, it will be “not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ” (Philippians 3:9).
That is how we can truly stand before the judgment bar of God—not with fear, but with eager and hopeful anticipation, knowing that in Christ, our debt is paid, our record is clean, and our future is secure.