Fearing the Judgment Seat | Theocast

The Judgment Seat of Christ and Heavenly Reward

Hi, this is Justin. Are you ready to stand before the judgment seat of Christ? And are your good works the kind that will endure, or are they all just gonna be burned up? We answer a listener's question about these very things today.

We get this question all the time at Theocast about the judgment seat of Christ and about heavenly reward. And we want to look at it today from a biblical perspective. We will survey a number of the passages that are commonly referenced with respect to this.

We hope that the conversation is clarifying for you. We hope it's helpful, and we hope that it is encouraging.

Stay tuned.

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Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ. Conversations about the Christian life from a Reformed perspective. Our hosts today are John Moffitt, pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee, and myself, Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina.

John, it's good to be behind the mic with you again today. My brother, it's a double dip week for us. We recorded yesterday with our brother, Jimmy Bueller, and he is headed out of town soon for some much needed rest and diversion from the task with his family.

So it's just you and me today, man. And so that means that we're both doing a little bit of heavy lifting. So I'm gonna throw it over to you now for the most anticipated segment that Theocast ever brings to the table, and that is the pro con.

That's right.

This is why people listen the rest of the podcast. People just turn it off.

Or they're so offended.

Or they're so offended they just turn it off. All right, I'm gonna start with my con. Things I don't like.

What is this, John?

This is the con pro, dude. It's pro con.

I know, pro con. All right, I'll start with pro.

You do you, man.

I'll start pro. I am pro hammocks. I am pro hammocks. I recently installed one right off the back porch in the shade.

No, I mean, not really much to say other than I'm with you.

Who doesn't like a hammock?

I didn't realize how much I liked hammocks. I've never had one at my house before. And now we have a hammock.

And it is like.

So are you trying to say that you like hammocks more than I do? Is that what you're saying?

Yeah, pretty much.

Pretty much.

You'll see. We get the boys. You guys are coming out in August. So you get a chance. It's not too hot. But it's in the shade. And man, I'm telling you, some music and a good book. My kids are back there on that thing all the time.

So anyways, pro hammocks.

Why not?

I am con the mask debate. I just really don't wanna be involved in another mask debate for it or against it. And I'm not even gonna step into it in this podcast. I just am over the mask debate. So that's my con.

I'm gonna let that lie where it is. Yeah, I don't wanna. No comment. All right, so let me just go ahead and quickly and awkwardly pivot and transition us into our topic.

Which actually, the mask, before you pivot, the mask debate brings up so much, so much controversy in our current culture. It's like we reward those who wear them and we damn those who don't. Kind of like our topic today.

Well done, John.

I had to throw it in there. I had to throw it in there, just a cheesy transition point.

Absolutely. So we got a listener question recently and we get this question a decent amount. I mean, I know that we have, even in my time at Theocast, we've gotten correspondence about the topic that we're gonna be discussing today.

And I think it's one that has produced a lot of confusion in the church and people are just unsure of what to do with these particular passages that we're gonna be looking at today. The topic for today's discussion is that of the judgment seat of Christ for believers, and in particular, the judgment according to works or giving an account of our lives and heavenly reward for good works done.

So we're basically gonna be answering the question, like how should we understand the judgment seat of Christ and the principle of heavenly reward for Christians? And I think before we dive into the particular passages, it is worth mentioning that there is not much ink spilled in the New Testament on this.

There are really only a handful of passages that deal with reward and the judgment seat of Christ. And we're gonna try to highlight each of those today and spend more time in a couple of them because they're lengthier, but then we're gonna try to highlight all of them and survey them and hopefully bring some clarity into this conversation.

And I would say the most popular ones for sure.

Sure, we'll spend more time on those. Yeah, so that's where we're headed. Judgment seat of Christ, heavenly reward. John, I mean, help us brother. How do we understand these things?

Well, it has been used and I've seen it used my entire Christian life and it pops up here and there. We are in several different text threads and we'll see links where this language is used to control the Christian from final justification to rewards, to fear of standing before God because of judgment.

And to begin with, I would say that normally when this passage is presented, it's never explained in context. The book and purpose of the book and the section of scripture, they don't take time to look at the tone, the purpose, the goal.

And they just assume, well, it says, look, you're gonna stand for the judgment seat of Christ. You better be aware. You better be fearful. What you do matters. And when I was in seminary, I can remember we had, I think an entire four classes where we were studying the different rewards and he had it pretty systematized, the different rewards one could potentially have based upon their level of effort and work here.

And you could have a kingdom. You could be a landowner. I mean, depending on your status here will determine your status in the new kingdom, which we're gonna definitely do a podcast on this coming soon about the laborers in the field, which is in the document.

Sure, the laborers in the, yeah, yeah.

Vineyard, sorry, thank you.

And even the parable of the talents potentially.

Right, right. To think that some come to Christ and they're not here long enough to establish any kind of, does that mean that pastors have the greatest seats or missionaries have the greatest positions in heaven?

And what it turns into is that we become so focused on what we're going to gain and what we're going to get out of this Christian life as it relates to physical status and physical rewards in heaven that it can and does cause great discouragement.

It can cause a comparative righteousness where we feel that we are better than others because of the labor that we put in. So what we here at Theocast wanna always do is bring relief and rest for the Christian.

We wanna motivate you to demonstrate kindness and grace and mercy and motivate you towards the gospel. And I believe that this idea of putting fear or in someone's Christian life, depending on what they're doing because they're gonna stand before Christ or motivating them towards reward is dangerous.

And we're gonna look at context and realize this is not what the writers of the New Testament had in mind, specifically Paul and the writer of Hebrews. So we'll start with 1 Corinthians, which is a

Maybe one other general comment from me before we look at particular passages. I think our overarching understanding of these passages is gonna become clear, but I think for us, rather than these texts producing fear or encouraging people to just accumulate as much stuff for themselves as they can, our understanding of these texts are that they are to give hope and encouragement in the midst of life in a fallen world.

And even in one particular example, the judgment seat of Christ is meant to humble all of us so that we love one another better. And so that's kind of our general take on these things, and we're gonna try to unpack them passage by passage.

The Foundation of Christ in 1 Corinthians 3

So John, do we wanna start in 1 Corinthians 3? Is that where we're gonna go first?

Yeah, I think we're gonna do things a little bit different today than normally. We keep things general, but we felt like it was a good podcast to actually look at the texts and maybe show people that next, I guess what we do this, before we get into these passages, we encourage you that if someone brings to you a verse or two, which there are some famous verses, we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, it would do you well to go back and read the chapter and then maybe even find out

Read the whole letter maybe.

Right, maybe even find out what's the purpose of the letter. I mean, Justin and I did this. We did this together. We said, hey, look, before we bring this before the congregation, before the listeners, let's talk, make sure that we understand what's the purpose of the book?

What's the purpose of this section? What is this chapter covering? Because we want to rightly explain this.

We spent 30 minutes reading and talking and looking at the words and the sentences and the context and everything else.

Right, just to make sure that we had agreement on what those were. And, you know, Justin and I have had conversations about this for a long time now. So it's not the first time we thought about it. But yeah, let's jump into the text because one, not only are we going to answer this question, but I was telling Justin, I think the exact opposite is going to happen.

Those who normally are afraid and find discouragement in these verses, I think are going to find hope and encouragement. It's going to be flipped on its head where you'll find rest.

Last, just sort of public service announcement for interpreting scripture. Not only do you need to always take things in context, as John was just encouraging us to, and as we are going to try to do today, something that we would discourage you from doing is what might be called proof texting, where you just isolate verses and use them to sort of prove a point.

But then also something else that we warn people against is an outlook or a perspective, a hermeneutic called biblicism, where you take verses and pit them against one another. And it almost makes the Bible come across as schizophrenic.

Like we would pit the idea of standing before the judgment seat of Christ over and against our promise of justification by grace through faith in Christ alone. And we ought not do that with scripture.

We need to be able to hold these things together in an appropriate tension even, but we ought not cancel one text with another or pit one text against another. And biblicism does that all the time and creates tension and mystery where there isn't any in scripture.

And so, yeah, I hope that's helpful to the listener. So John, 1 Corinthians 3, let's look at it, man.

Right, so a famous letter, right? Paul is dealing with a number of issues. The church is all, it's all kind of divided all over the place and promoting all kinds of promiscuity and issues within the church.

And in this particular section, in the beginning of the letter in chapter three, you are dealing with the issue of the church becoming divided where they

Unity, Division, and the Fire That Tests Works

Division in the church is the issue.

It is the issue. So Paul is not trying to whip them in the shape as far as it comes to morality. The major concern, and Paul does this almost in every single one of his letters. You see it plainly in Ephesians chapter four.

You see it in Colossians chapter two, where he's trying to create unity within the body, where the focus is on, I mean, he says in Colossians chapter two that there are people who have come into the church and they're taking your focus off of the head, which is Christ.

Well, he's using the same kind of language here. I mean, we know the famous accusation. So he begins by saying to them, I wish I could give you and call you spiritual people, but you are so far of the flesh.

And then he gets explained. He goes, listen, your foundation, the way in which you are building your spiritual life is on men. You are dividing yourself. Some of you are saying I'm a Paulist, I'm a Paul.

And he gets really irritated with them and says, what are you doing? So even if you begin in verse seven, it says, so neither he who plants or he who waters is anything but only God who gives the growth.

He who plants and he who waters are one and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building. So he's beginning saying, you are all trying, basically the labors you're doing right now, you're creating legitimacy based upon who has trained you.

Yeah, there's jealousy. Yeah, there's jealousy among you, he says. There's strife among you. You're wigging out over what tribe you're a part of in one sense. Like, are you with Apollos? Are you with Paul?

Are you with Cephas? Peter, he mentions later. And he's saying none of those things are of any value. There's one thing that's of value and that's where he's going. You know, in verse 11, there's one foundation.

And the one foundation of the church is Jesus Christ. And then he's going to talk about doing good works upon that foundation, beginning in verse 12.

Right, which I think if you miss verse 11, then you miss the whole illustration of what he's saying. So all of these people, the Corinthian church is divided. They are building their reputation, their foundation upon the reputation of another man and his righteousness or his spiritual or his level of

Or his teaching, his giftedness, whatever.

Right, and Paul comes in and he says, for no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now, if anyone builds on a foundation with gold, silver, precious stone, wood, hay, straw.

So again, famous section, right? We're talking about that which is going to be burned. Each one's works will become manifest. For the day will disclose it because it will be revealed by fire and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.

If the work that anyone has built, let's go ahead.

No, go ahead, brother. Finish reading.

If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive reward. If anyone works is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

Right, well, I mean, a couple of observations for me. I mean, the first is, this is just a broad observation of Corinthians in general. I mean, Paul rebukes the Corinthian Christians for a lot of things in the whole letter, but he is not calling into question their salvation.

I mean, he even makes that clear here. You know, it's not that you will not be saved, but he is pointing out that some people are gonna do works by faith in Christ, built upon the foundation of Christ, not motivated by following particular men or tribalism or anything like that.

And then there are gonna be other kinds of works that are done out of these kind of selfish and vain, silly motivations, you know, where it's like, well, okay, I'm out of strife and jealousy and all these things, I'm doing this stuff.

So I think that's the distinction that he's drawing, is that there are gonna be some works done by faith in Jesus, built upon the foundation of Christ, not motivated by this silliness. And then there are gonna be other things done in a different vein, and some of those works are gonna stand and some of them will not, but it's not a fearful thing, you know, in terms of like, well, the works that you have done, you know, that aren't gonna stand are gonna damn you.

It's not that, but he is saying that they are not of the value that works done by faith in Christ. For the sake, we would understand it, for the unity of the church and the good of your brothers and sisters, those works will stand in a way that these other silly things will not.

Yeah, I mean, how many times does Paul have to say we walk by faith, not by sight, right? The Christian life, what we do, Hebrews 11, six, without faith, it's impossible to please God.

That's right.

Right, so here is an issue of, they are putting their faith in their alignment other than Christ, and it's causing all kinds of

They're looking to something other than Jesus, yeah.

Right, and because of it, they're causing division to where they're, if everyone is building their foundation on Christ, it will unify us, and we will realize that there is no reason to boast, none whatsoever, because our foundation is Jesus Christ, not anyone else.

This is one, so he goes, he continues on, go ahead.

In other words, I mean, one way I might sum this up is anything that you're doing that's causing unnecessary division in the church is gonna be burned up. Anything that you're doing in Christ Jesus by faith that is producing unity, but in particular, unity around Christ, will stand.

That's right. Right, so he goes on and says, do you not know that you, plural, are God's temple and that God's spirit dwells in you, plural? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him, for God's temple is holy, and you are that temple.

Now, we always assume, well, oh, that's drugs, sexuality, tattoos for some.

Well, we assume that that's an individual you, and it's not. I mean, that is a corporate, like, do you, the church, not understand that you, the church, are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and that the unity of the church and anybody who destroys the church, this is really bad.

But God takes offense when people destroy the unity and the love in the church.

We're excited to announce that we have a new, free e-book available at our website called Faith Versus Faithfulness, A Primer on Rest. And we, the hosts, put this together to explain the difference between emphasizing one's faith in Christ versus emphasizing one's faithfulness to Christ, and how one leads to rest, and how the other, often to a lack of assurance.

And you can get this at theocast .org slash primer. And if you've been encouraged by what you've been hearing at Theocast, we'd ask you to help partner with us. You can do that by joining our Total Access membership.

That's our monthly membership that gives you access to all of our material that we've produced over the last four years, or simply by donating to our ministry, and you can do that by going to our website, theocast .org.

We hope that you enjoy the rest of the conversation. Paul's strongest language comes to those who have divided the church. I mean, he has said even some

Compromise the gospel and dividing the church.

He says some things about certain men that they should treat themselves in ways that sounds very painful. And, but he, anytime someone comes in and brings division amongst the body, that's where Paul gets, you know, so

That's right.

He continues on in verse 18, let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God, for it is written, he catches the wise in their craftiness.

And again, the Lord knows the thoughts of the wise and that they are fruitful. So he is dismantling all this. They are so impressed by the prowess of those who are around, and they're finding their legitimacy based upon who it is that they follow.

And Paul comes in and says, this is causing division because you should find your hope inside Christ as your foundation, not another teacher.

Well, and it's, so verse 21, so let no one boast in men. Conclusion at the end of it, verse 23, because you're Christ's, you belong to Jesus and Christ is God's, right? So the issue is like you, you ought not boast in men.

You ought not wig out and divide over which men you're following. Do you not know that all of you are in Christ Jesus and Christ is God's? So he's arguing for unity and love in the church, in the context here.

And that's how we should understand all of his language about works that will stand and works that will burn up. It has everything to do with that unity and love in the body. And that one foundation of Christ, like we're rallying around Jesus and not anything else.

So it'd be safe to say, I don't think Paul here is throwing at us the fear tactic of get yourself in line or else. He is actually saying like Hebrews does, don't, don't grasp onto anything, but Christ, anything.

And he's not also telling people you need to concern yourself with doing a bunch of good stuff so that you'll get a lot of stuff in heaven.

That's right.

That's not the point, like store, basically like make sure that you make bank for yourself in the new heaven and the new earth. That's not the point. The point is, let's, let's exalt Christ. Let's extol the mercy, love, and grace of Christ.

Let's build on the one foundation, which is Jesus, and let's pursue unity in Christ in the church.

Now, when he says, if the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he'll receive a reward. We have no idea what that means. And the fact that God's going to give us a reward for trusting in Christ is crazy.

Why would he do that?

It's grace. And so I'll throw this in. I think Mike Horton does a great job of describing something of what this reward will be. It's going to be like the praise and the rejoicing of heaven is going to be part of our reward in that, on that day when the good works of the saints are extolled in Christ Jesus, we are all going to be standing on the tabletops celebrating what's been done for Christ's not because, oh, John, you're incredible.

It's like, no, Christ is worthy, and praise be to his name that this was done in faith. And yeah, you're exactly right. The language of reward is very ambiguous, and we don't know what that means. A lot of times it's talked about in very material terms, like how big your house is going to be, or how much property you're going to own, or how much money you're going to have.

And it's like that, at best, is being read into the text. And at worst, I think, is just incredibly deceiving, and it misguides people.

Justin Perdue. Well, I think the pridefulness of our heart, yeah, real quick, I think the pridefulness of our heart causes us to, again, we have the nature of comparative righteousness. It's built within us.

The depravity of man, it always wants to be able to look at the guy next to us and say, I'm better, and I've done more. Where we learn from scripture that everyone is in equal need of grace. Everyone is saved with the same amount of grace, and everyone is saved in the same manner, and the reward is Christ.

The moment you put your faith in Christ, as it's been gifted to you, according to Ephesians 2, the moment you do that, your reward instantly, whether you live a thousand years or one day, is Christ and Him crucified.

And if God so chooses to, and we don't know what those rewards are, we hear words like crowns. I think the point of it is that even the writers of the New Testament, it's so outside of their earthly knowledge to know what this looks like.

They're just kind of grasping. John even says, I'm trying to use language when he writes in Revelation. I'm trying to use language that I don't have words to describe what I'm seeing, so here's my best shot of using languages here.

Even reward, too. I'm mindful of the thief on the cross where Jesus looks at him and says, today you will be with me in paradise. If you want to know what the reward is, ultimately, that's it. That is promised to everybody who's in Jesus by faith.

You'll be with me in paradise forever. That's enough. And then anything else on top of that, we can trust that God is good, and that the new heaven and new earth is going to be epic. And it's going to be epic primarily because God and Christ are there, and we are with the Lord.

Hope in Affliction and the Guarantee of Heaven in 2 Corinthians 5

Let's transition to 2 Corinthians 5 in light of what we're just talking about right now. 2 Corinthians 5 .10 says, For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or.

Evil.

Let's think about this in its context. 2 Corinthians, largely, Paul is defending the legitimacy of his own apostolic ministry throughout that letter. At the end of 2 Corinthians 3, we've got some wonderful language about the revelation of Christ and how, as we behold Jesus, Paul is a minister of the new covenant, and in the new covenant, Christ is revealed, and as we behold the Lord Jesus, we're transformed from one degree of glory to another.

He talks in the early part of 2 Corinthians 4 about how, again, through the revelation of Jesus Christ, the light of God has shown, the light of knowledge of the glory of God has shown in our hearts as we behold the face of Jesus Christ.

Then he talks about this, we have treasures in jars of clay. I think what he's talking about there is we have the treasure of the revelation of Jesus, and we, as stewards of that, are like jars of clay holding a treasure within them, and we're just trying to steward this well as apostles.

Then he gets into, at the very end of that, he talks about how they, like he and other apostles like him, as opposed to these super apostles, often face afflictions and trials, and things are hard. He talks about the hope, though, in verse 17 of 2 Corinthians 4, for this light momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.

We look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen, for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. Then, beginning in 2 Corinthians 5 .1, he starts to talk about heaven.

He starts to talk about the guarantee of heaven and how it's certain. He says that in verse 5, he who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. That sounds just like Ephesians 1.

Justin Perdue. Guarantee should be like a big flashing light for context.

Justin Perdue Yeah, like God has done.

This.

Like, the reason that you can have hope in current affliction and trial is because the new heaven and the new earth is coming, and it's certain.

It's secure.

It's guaranteed. God has done this. He has promised. He's faithful. So then, verse 6, so we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in.

The body.

Justin Perdue. Which is in the same paragraph as the warning.

Justin Perdue. Yeah, and so we know that while we're at home in the body, we're away from the Lord, for we walk by faith and not by sight. Yes, verse 8, we are of good courage. There it is again, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.

So whether we are at home or away, this is verse 9, we make it our aim to please him. So Paul is talking about, and then he says, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of God. So it seems that in the context, we're talking again of the guarantee of heaven.

We're talking about hope in the midst of affliction. Paul says we are of good courage, and so we work, and we make it our aim to please God. And then you talked earlier about how fear often in this whole conversation about the judgment seat of Christ and even reward.

Fear is what controls. Well, Paul says something very different in verse 14 of 2 Corinthians 5, for the love of Christ controls us, he says. And it seems that the controlling piece and the motivating factor is something altogether different than fear.

Those are just a few thoughts from me on 2 Corinthians 5. John, jump in.

Yeah, no, I couldn't agree with you more. When he says, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

In that context, so think about when you're in persecution and you're struggling, and I would even put it in today's context. I'm having conversations with congregants where they are in despair. It feels like the world is collapsing in on us, where it's COVID -19, it's racism, it's sexual deviancy, the political.

Politics, whatever.

People are dying. I've had so many church members that have lost family members more this year than I've ever had in the past as a pastor. And then they can't go to funerals because of COVID -19. And this week alone, I've had two members who had two serious surgeries.

So it just feels like the sky is falling for some people. They know it's not, but that is the feeling that they carry around with them. And I am sympathetic to that because I too feel the weight of all of this.

And then there's the weight of my own sin and the weight of my own struggle. And you literally begin to say, Lord, this is chaos. Why can't you just come back? And why are you making us endure this? One, you're clearly not choosing to fix this because people are still dying and they're still suffering and they're still fighting in chaos.

And it's been this way for thousands of years since the flood. So you're not coming back anytime soon. We wait and anticipate your return. So the attitude can be, as Paul says here, man, we'd just rather be with the Lord.

I would just rather be here. And Paul says, let me encourage you. And going back to 1 Corinthians chapter three, he had already told them, you're a worker for God. God did not leave you here so that you can prove your salvation.

God did not leave you here so that you could do something that gains reward for you. He left you here with a purpose and a mission. And that purpose and a mission is to love others with the gospel and to love each other for encouragement because the lost sheep still must be found.

So for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, he's just saying, hey, listen, what you do here matters because it's the advancement of the gospel. And I would go back to 2 Peter chapter one, where he says that what you do, you don't want to be of, what's the actual language he uses there, of no effect or of no value.

You want to make sure that what you're doing here as a believer, as you're following in Christ, it actually is advancing the mission, which is the proclamation of the gospel to the believer and unbeliever alike.

So when he gets down to it, it's not a fear passage at all. You have the commendation of the Spirit. You have the walk by faith for the love of Christ controls us, verse 14, because we have concluded this, that one has died for all, therefore we all die.

And he's giving this constant encouragement that two things, you are safe and secure, look to the love of Christ and what you do actually does.

Matter.

It's not useless, because I can tell you, it feels like life is worthless at the moment. Nothing's happening. The world's going to hell in a hand.

Basket.

Christians are being stupid. They're fighting with each other. And Paul says, no, no, no, everything is fine. Everything is in the midst of chaos. The love of Christ will keep you and realize what you do does matter.