X. The making of the charge is described by the metaphor of books or records in which the actions of the person who are being judged are written down.
Revelation 20:12 ‘And the books were opened.’ By the word ‘books’ is to be understood both God’s omniscience and man’s conscience.
XI.The wicked will be judged in accordance with their works and on account of their works; the righteousness according to the works of faith but not on account of their works.
Thus in Revelation 20:12 it is said the that another book, the book of life, was opened, so that we may know that the salvation of the righteous depends not on works but on the eternal grace of God, through which they have been entered into the book of life.
—Johannes Wollebius, Compendium of Christian Theology (1626), 25.10–11 in John W. Beardslee in Reformed Dogmatics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), 184.
Jonathan Edwards: “We are really saved by perseverance…the perseverance which belongs to faith is one thing that is really a fundamental ground of the congruity that faith gives to salvation…For, though a sinner is justified in his first act of faith, yet even then, in that act of justification, God has respect to perseverance as being implied in the first act.”
Richard Gaffin, p 102, By Faith Not by Sight,–“This expression obedience of faith is best taken as intentionally multivalent…In other words, faith itself is an obedience, as well as other acts of obedience that stem from faith.”
Gaffin—When the prepositional phrase “without works” is taken adverbially, that is, as modifying the verb “justifies,” then the statement “faith without works justifies,” is true. When “without works” is taken adjectivally, that is, with the noun “faith,” that is, “without-works faith,” then the same statement is false.”