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Well he's not using our works to see if we've earned our way into the kingdom. Our works show our faith. And he will in fact use our works to determine if we get to go into the kingdom or not. Look at what James says......
That's why a person must be justified by their works too. If a person really is saved their works will show that. If their works don't show that they aren't really saved. Unsaved people can't walk after a Spirit they don't have. Saved people can, and do.
A person can bear the fruit of the Spirit without necessarily doing good works.
Don't use the 1 in 50,000,000 example of the thief on the cross to change the Bible that tells us in Matthew 25:31-46 that Jesus will look at our works to determine if we go to the kingdom or into the fire. The thief on the cross doesn't change the way Jesus will judge the billions of us people who lived our whole lives with moving arms and legs. God is not a legalist, for as I said, it's about the fruit of the Spirit anyway. You don't have to always move your arms and legs to walk in the Spirit. Sometimes just keeping your mouth shut is a righteous work of the Spirit.
Walking by the Spirit is what good works are. Some of the works of the law are what you do in your heart, or are what you don't do with your body.
You would have been sinning if you had given it to them. You did a righteous thing by not giving them what you considered in your heart to be a sinful thing (Romans 14:14). Besides, this isn't about being perfect all the time. This is about being characterized more and more as a person who pursues and walks in the things of the Spirit.
Let's put this argument to rest right now.
If the gold, silver and precious gems in 1 Corinthians 3:8-17 was our personal obedient works of holy living, and that we didn't have to have those works, just dead faith, to be saved when Jesus comes back that would contradict what Jesus said that people who don't have personal obedient works of holy living will not be saved. All you have to do is look at the context of 1 Corinthians 3:8-17 and you can see that the work that the saved person can not have and still be saved is the work of planting and watering and building the field and temple of God's people. You can be a complete failure at leading people to faith in Christ and making them ready for the judgment and having your work burn up in the judgment, while you yourself will be saved. But you can't have no works of personal holiness and be saved because that's the sign of an unsaved person. True believers are getting more and more holy in the way they live and they will have works to show for their faith when Jesus comes back. Unbelievers will not.
14What good is it, my brothers, if someone claims to have faith, but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?
Justified is defined as making one righteous, and it is also defined as showing one to be righteous. Faith makes you righteous. That's what Paul is talking about. Works show you are righteous. That's what James is talking about. You have to be justified in both these ways, faith and works, to be saved from going to the lake of fire when Jesus comes back. Because people who have been made righteous by faith are new people who do new things. People who have not been made righteous by faith are not new people and they continue to do the same old sinful things they've always been doing. That's why Jesus is able to judge us in Matthew 25:31-46 by what we do as to whether we love and trust him, or don't love and trust him.
I did give James' answer.
And that's why people who do not have works will not be saved when Jesus comes back. They show by their lives that they do not have faith in God and that they are still the old creation they have always been. That is why a person must be justified by both faith and works to be saved.
