Transcript

ANNOUNCER: Is it possible that our pre-salvation good works could influence the quality and quantity of our eternal rewards? It’s a good question. Stay tuned. We’ll talk about it. This is Grace in Focus. Glad you’re with us, friend. Grace in Focus is a radio broadcast and podcast ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. We’re located in North Texas. We have a website, faithalone.org. Learn more about us there, including our subscription free magazine, our online free seminary, and most importantly right now, our upcoming national annual convention, happening May 18th through the 21st, 2026. It’s a great time of fellowship and learning, great accommodations at Camp Copass, and we’d love you to be with us. Find out more, get information and details at faithalone.org/events.

And now with today’s question and answer discussion, here are Bob Wilkin and Sam Marr. 

SAM: All right, Bob. We’ve got a question from Austin on eternal rewards. This is a question I’ve heard other people ask in different ways. I have to imagine you and Ken have talked about it at some point, but his question is, can a person who believed in the free gift of everlasting life, it’s his example, I guess, is if they believe at an old age and then they pass away, you know, shortly after, do any of their works from before they were born again, have an impact on their eternal reward? So basically the question is, can you store up rewards in heaven before you’re born again? 

BOB: All right, so no, I don’t think Ken and I have ever answered that. I don’t think anybody’s ever asked me that. I like the question, Austin. I would say it looks at it both ways. In terms of can what we do before we’re born again, decrease our eternal rewards, and can what we’re do before we’re born again, increase our eternal rewards. I don’t think we just need to think of people who come to faith in Christ when they’re 90 years old and they’re only a believer for a couple of months before they pass. I think this question applies to everyone of every age. 

Here’s my thinking: I don’t know of a single verse that would answer this question, but there is a principle that whatever a man sows that will he also reap, Galatians 6:7. And it’s all through the Old Testament and all through the New Testament that everyone is judged according to their works in this life and everyone will be judged according to their works in the life to come. Given that principle, here’s what I would say, what we do before we come to faith can either enhance our ability to serve Christ after we come to faith or diminish it. 

Let me give you a few examples. Let’s say, for example, that somebody is a major drug addict before they come to faith and they really mess their brain up so they’re no longer thinking as well as they would have before and they’ve also got lots of physical impairments. Well, when they come to faith in Christ, they’re going to be judged based on what they did with what they had. But the question I would have is, will the Lord take into account that this person did diminish what he gave them? I don’t know, but I think it’s a lively option. 

On the other hand, what about a person who before they come to faith in Christ, they maintain their body well. They don’t abuse their body. They exercise. They diet. They study hard. They train their brain to be very efficient so that when they come to faith in Christ, this person is in a really good position to grow in the faith and to serve the Lord. Did what they do beforehand enhance their ability to serve Christ? I think my answer would be in both cases, yes, what we do before we come to faith has an impact on what we’re able to do after we come to faith and we’re going to be rewarded based on what we did. So therefore, I tend to think that, yes, what we do before we come to faith has some ramifications for how much our eternal reward is. 

Now, God is gracious. So there may be cases where someone has damaged their brain and damaged their body and yet God allows them to overcome that and actually they’re very, very effective in their service for Christ. Maybe they’re even more effective than they would have been if they hadn’t done that. I think of someone like Joni Erickson Tada. You know, she broke her neck when she was 17 and she’s been paralyzed from the neck down ever since. But she’s had an amazing ministry with people who have disabilities. Who’s to say, what she would have accomplished if she hadn’t broken her neck? I don’t know all those ins and but Austin, I would say, as a believer, we should do everything we can to serve Christ. And before we come to faith, if we’re following the image of God, which God has created us in, we should be doing everything we can to be the most productive people we could be. 

SAM: I want to bring up a non-physical example that I think would be a good thought experiment. We have an interesting character in the New Testament who was one of the greatest Old Testament Bible scholars. He was very zealous. He was well-renowned among his people, but he was very, very, very wrong about Christ because he missed him. He thought Jesus came. This is not the Christ. I’m talking about Saul later known as Paul. So Saul had a very in-depth knowledge of God’s Word. I think he was a God-fearer. But the bottom line is he didn’t believe that Jesus was the Christ. And he persecuted the early church because he was convicted that this was a false teacher. And these people were heretics of the Jewish faith. But on the road to Damascus, Christ appeared to him. And then he believes in Jesus Christ. And then he’s a very strong Jewish Christian, helps found the early church, helps, writes all his letters. So what he did before he was born again, clearly impacted what he did after he was born again, right? 

BOB: Yes, very good point. Saul of Tarsus could arguably be seen as one of the greatest, if not the greatest Christians in the church age. The foundation of the church according to Ephesians 2:20 is the apostles and the prophets. So the apostles certainly concerns the twelve, but it probably also concerns Barnabas as well as the foundation of the church. And as you know, Saul was the apostle to the Gentiles. Peter was the apostle to the Jews. And Paul was certainly one of the greatest Christians in the entire church age. And I do agree with you. Part of the reason is his experience before he came to faith. 

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BOB: Paul was certainly one of the greatest Christians in the entire church age. Part of the reason is his experience before he came to faith. 

SAM: But part of that experience was a great deal of sin and rebellion against God and persecuting God’s people. The Jewish people at that time were not the people that God was working through. He was working through his disciples, his apostles and then the early church. So Paul in that sense would have racked up a great deal of judgment or wrath or discipline that he was going to reap later on. But then he’s born again and then clearly he starts doing the opposite. He starts sowing a good deal of blessing and reward and greatness. So if the question is before we’re born again, are we reaping and sowing eternal reward and eternal judgment or discipline, then Paul would be a really weird example because he did so much bad stuff before he was a Christian and he did so much good stuff afterwards. 

BOB: That’s great. Okay. So maybe I’ve not been clear and thank you for saying that. Austin, here’s my point. I’m not suggesting that something that any unbeliever did before they came to Christ, they’re going to be rewarded for that. Maybe they will, but I don’t think so. I think it’s from the time we come to faith, till the time we die, based on Scripture. What I was saying is what we do before we come to faith can make us more or less effective after we come to faith and that in turn influences, does that make sense Sam? 

SAM: That does, and I think that’s correct because like you said, there’s no verse we can really point to to give us a yes or no, but part of being forgiven and born again is those things aren’t held against you anymore. But like you said, there’s physical consequences for your sin and being born again doesn’t immediately just make those things go away. Those things still are going to plague you. 

BOB: And Paul did call himself the chief of sinners, right? He was one of the greatest of sinners. And of course, you’re right when you think of Acts chapter 7, Saul is present when Stephen is killed. He is cooperating in the killing of Stephen. Of course, when he’s on his way to Damascus and meets the Lord Jesus and comes to faith, he’s going there to arrest Christians. And they’re going to be brought back to Jerusalem and quite likely killed. And so he was a leading persecutor of the church. He not only rejected Jesus as the Messiah, but he rejected his message of justification by faith alone, apart from works. He would have been like the Judaizers that were attacking the churches in Galatia saying, you’ve got to be circumcised, you’ve got to keep the law of Moses. And that’s why him being the apostle to the Gentiles is such an amazing thing because he would always, when he would go into a new town, to the Jew first and then to the Greek. So he would start in the synagogue and he would talk to the Jews or the God-fearing Gentiles, but they’d eventually kick him out. And then he would end up ministering to the Gentiles. Then he planted lots of churches. So I would say, yeah, what we do before we come to faith has a big impact. 

Let me give you my quick personal testimony. I was in a works salvation, sinless perfection, holiness group before I came to faith. I was involved in that from age six to age twenty. It was extreme lordship salvation. It taught that if you committed one sin after you were born again, then you lost your salvation and could never get it back. Now you’re done. And we considered cussing sin. We had all kinds of words that were sin, you know, beyond just normal cuss words, but all kinds of things. It was extremely legalistic. 

And yet when I came to faith, that had a very positive impact on me because the grace of God just blew my mind. And I’ve dedicated my whole life to telling people this great message that if we simply believe in Jesus, we have everlasting life that can never be lost. I think Saul was like that. His background was so legalistic and no assurance that when he came to faith, he became the leading apologist, the leading defender of the Christian faith. 

SAM: So for Austin, I think the answer from what we can tell is no, but that shouldn’t discourage anyone and think, wow I wasted my whole life there’s no chance for me to live a life pleasing to God. You can still live a life pleasing to God, and he’s going to reward you and judge you in this view you based on what you’ve been given and what you have. You can’t compare what you don’t have to what you do have. 

BOB: Absolutely. Just do the best you can with what you have. You can’t go back, so go forward. And please God, because what we want him to say is, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Sam, let’s keep grace in focus. Amen. 

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On our next episode: does belief in Jesus as the Christ give a person eternal life? Please join us and until then, let’s keep grace in focus.