But I don't like it that way!

If every possible system of merit has been swept away by Christ and buried with him in his death (Rom. 6:4), then we have nothing of our own to rely on. If the “balance sheet” has been torn up and discarded forever, we are in the position of the laborers in the vineyard who are angry because someone who worked fewer hours was paid as well as they were. That’s what we don’t like about God being the Judge. If human nature were the judge in such a situation, we would pay according to hours and productivity. Not so God, who, like the landowner in the parable, says, “Do you begrudge my generosity?” (Matt. 20:15). So God being Judge is a two-edged sword; on the one hand it slices the way we like because God is for us; but on the other hand it slices in a way we don’t like because he is also for everyone else without the usual distinctions, and that means no more A list and B list, and therefore no more building up of our own egos at someone else’s expense.—Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion, 318