Elder David A. Bednar - They Are Their Own Judges

 Elder Bednar suggested that at the final judgement, we will be our own judge, teaching that Moroni - 

"...said, “I soon go to rest in the paradise of God, until my spirit and body shall again reunite, and I am brought forth triumphant through the air, to meet you before the pleasing bar of the great Jehovah, the Eternal Judge of both quick and dead.”

I am intrigued by Moroni’s use of the word “pleasing” to describe the Final Judgment. Other Book of Mormon prophets likewise describe the Judgment as a “glorious day” and one that we should “look forward [to] with an eye of faith.” Yet often when we anticipate Judgment Day, other prophetic descriptions come to mind, such as “shame and awful guilt,” “dread and fear,” and “endless misery.”"

"The overarching purposes of the Father’s plan are to provide His spirit children with opportunities to receive a physical body, learn “good from evil” through mortal experience, grow spiritually, and progress eternally.

What the Doctrine and Covenants refers to as “moral agency” is central in God’s plan to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of His sons and daughters. This essential principle also is described in the scriptures as agency and the freedom to choose and to act.

The term “moral agency” is instructive. Synonyms for the word “moral” include “good,” “honest,” and “virtuous.” Synonyms for the word “agency” include “action,” “activity,” and “work.” Hence, “moral agency” can be understood as the ability and privilege to choose and act for ourselves in ways that are good, honest, virtuous, and true.

God’s creations include both “things to act and things to be acted upon.” And moral agency is the divinely designed “power of independent action” that empowers us as God’s children to become agents to act and not simply objects to be acted upon.

The earth was created as a place whereon Heavenly Father’s children could be proved to see if they would “do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them.” A primary purpose of the Creation and of our mortal existence is to provide us the opportunity to act and become what the Lord invites us to become."

"President Dallin H. Oaks has emphasized that the gospel of Jesus Christ invites us both to know something and to become something through the righteous exercise of moral agency. He said:

“Many Bible and modern scriptures speak of a final judgment at which all persons will be rewarded according to their deeds or works or the desires of their hearts. But other scriptures enlarge upon this by referring to our being judged by the condition we have achieved.

“The prophet Nephi describes the Final Judgment in terms of what we have become: ‘And if their works have been filthiness they must needs be filthy; and if they be filthy it must needs be that they cannot dwell in the kingdom of God’ [1 Nephi 15:33; emphasis added]. Moroni declares, ‘He that is filthy shall be filthy still; and he that is righteous shall be righteous still’ [Mormon 9:14; emphasis added].”

President Oaks continued: “From such teachings we conclude that the Final Judgment is not just an evaluation of a sum total of good and evil acts—what we have done. It is an acknowledgment of the final effect of our acts and thoughts—what we have become.”"

Every person who has lived, who does now live, and who will yet live upon the earth “shall be brought to stand before the bar of God, to be judged of him according to [his or her] works whether they be good or whether they be evil.”

"If our desires have been for righteousness and our works good—meaning we have exercised faith in Jesus Christ, made and kept covenants with God, and repented of our sins—then the judgment bar will be pleasing. As Enos declared, we will “stand before [the Redeemer]; then shall [we] see his face with pleasure.” And on the last day, we will “be rewarded unto righteousness.”

Conversely, if our desires have been for evil and our works wicked, then the judgment bar will be a cause of dread. We will have “a perfect knowledge,” “a bright recollection,” and “a lively sense of [our] own guilt.” “We shall not dare to look up to our God; and we would fain be glad if we could command the rocks and the mountains to fall upon us to hide us from his presence.” And at the last day we will “have [our] reward of evil.”

Ultimately, then, we are our own judges. No one will need to tell us where to go. In the Lord’s presence, we will acknowledge what we have chosen to become in mortality and know for ourselves where we should be in eternity."