Transcript

ANNOUNCER: How can our bad works be judged at the Judgment Seat of Christ? If the Bible says Jesus died for all our sins and they’re already judged, what gets judged at the Judgment Seat of Christ? Hello, friend. Thank you for joining us today. This is Grace in Focus, a ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. Our website, faithalone.org, where you can find information about our upcoming national annual conference. We’re inviting you to it now so that you can make plans and get registered and attend. It’s May the 18th through the 21st. It’s a family event. You can bring your whole family. It will be at Camp Copass as it has been in years past, a beautiful venue. Great facility. Great teaching. Great fellowship. Plan to join us. May 18th through the 21st. Details at faithalone.org. 

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

SAM: All right, Bob. We’ve got a question from Mark. And this is a question about the Bema. This is about rewards. 

BOB: Bema, this is the Greek word for judgment seat. So the Judgment Seat of Christ. 

SAM: Yep. So this is pertaining to judgment for believers. So this question is, in your view, how do we reconcile being judged for good and bad when there’s Scripture telling us that our sins are buried in the sea of forgetfulness and separated from us as far as the east is from the west? 

BOB: Okay. So the verse he’s thinking of is 2 Corinthians 5:9-10. Could you read those two verses? 

SAM: Yep. It says, “Therefore, we make it our aim whether present or absent to be well pleasing to Him. For we all must appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what He has done, whether good or bad.” 

BOB: The word judgment seat is the Greek word bema. So on this show, we sometimes use the word bema to refer to the judgment seat. This occurs before the Millennium. This is for believers only, Church age believers only. There’s almost certainly a separate judgment for Old Testament believers before the Millennium as well. We know there’s a judgment of Tribulation Gentile believers called the judgment of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25:31-46, but this is the judgment of Church age believers. And he says, we’ll be recompensed for the deeds done in the body whether good or bad. 

And to be honest, there is a textual issue here. Some of the Greek manuscripts have a word which occasionally means worthless, phaulon. So some people say, like if you have the New American Standard or the NIV, that has phaulon. And so some people would translate it whether good or worthless. And so they would say it’s not good or bad, it’s good or worthless. However, the majority of manuscripts read kakon or the nominative is kakos, and that means evil or bad. Now, the interesting thing is even if you take the Critical text reading foul on, every time agathos, the word for good in the New Testament is opposite phaulos, it’s always good or bad. It’s never good or worthless. If this meant good or worthless, this would be the only place where agathos opposite phaulos is good or worthless. Besides that, the vast majority of manuscripts read kakon, which clearly means bad. So either way, whichever reading you take, it’s bad and it’s good or bad. 

So coming now back to Mark’s question, if God has separated our sins as far as the East and the West, and those sins are not going to be held against us, how is it that we’re going to be judged according to the deeds done in the body, if that includes bad deeds? Well, the answer to that question is, they’re judged as deeds, they’re not judged as sins. 

If you study the Great White Throne Judgment in Revelation 20:11-15, you find the same thing. In verse 11, it says, each one was judged according to his works, according to what was written in the books. It says nothing about sins in Revelation 20:11-15. Unbelievers aren’t going to be judged for their sins either. They’ll just be judged for their deeds, good or bad. Some people have the naive notion that unbelievers only have degrees of bad works. No, unbelievers have good works too. It’s wrong to think that somehow only believers have the image of God and only believers can do good things. Having said that, we’re going to be judged comprehensively for our whole lives. 

Take for example, David, right? Man after God’s own heart, yet what are a couple of major failings he had that are reported forever in Scripture? At the very least adultery, right? And murder because he killed Uriah. He was judged for that. God forgave him of that sin, but He judged him for the work. And as a result, the second half of 2 Samuel, chapters 12 through 24, are David in decline and the nation in decline. Absalom rebels, Absalom ends up getting killed. David has to flee, all kinds of problems. And they were a result of his bad works. 

Everyone is going to give an account at the Judgment Seat of Christ for the works they’ve done, good and bad. But that doesn’t mean they’re going to be judged as sins. For example, if you do something that brings dishonor to the name of Christ, then you will be judged for that bad work. But not as a sin. Of course, when we go before the Lord, we’re no longer out of fellowship with Him if we die out of fellowship. We’re in fellowship with Him, but we have to give an account. And that’s going to be true at the Judgment Seat of Christ. It’s going to be true at the Great White Throne Judgment. Everybody’s going to be judged according to their works. 

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SAM: Can you talk a little bit about the difference between something being judged as a sin versus being judged as a bad deed. Practically, what do you think that means?

BOB: Yeah, that’s a good question. And that is Mark’s question. And I managed to dodge it until you messed me up. Okay, I would say it’s a fine distinction, but it’s an actual distinction. Jesus died on the cross and removes the sin barrier, John 1:29, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Our sin is no longer an issue in terms of our eternal destiny. That’s why Revelation 20:15 says “Anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.” The issue was not what’s in the books—the deeds, the issue is what’s in the book—the Book of Life. If you’re not found in the Book of Life, you’re cast into the lake of fire because you never believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. 

So I would say that the reason that it’s not called your deeds whether good or sinful is because the sinful deeds have already been atoned for at the cross. And besides all that, they’re really being judged as works. They’re not being judged as sins. So it may seem like a fine distinction, but Scripture never says we’re going to be judged according to our sins. It’s always we’re going to be judged according to our works. And that’s by the way, I did a blog on that recently. If you look in the Old and New Testament, I’d urge you to do the study. This expression judged according to work or judged according to deeds or works appears a lot in the Old Testament and a lot in the New Testament. We’re judged in this life for what we do and in the next life. 

And by the way, this is something that I think is important that Mark is raising here. You’ve heard, Sam, where people will say, if I believe that I’m eternally secure by faith in Christ apart from works, why wouldn’t I go out and live like the devil? I think the reason is because I realize that sin pays bad wages. And if I am living a life that is displeasing to the Lord, I’m reaping the consequences. Now in this life, you can argue we’re judged according to our sins or judged according to our works either way, but according to Scripture, it says we’re judged according to our works. It doesn’t say we’re judged according to our sins. And so I would make that distinction. I would make it in terms of judgment in this life and judgment in the life to come. 

SAM: Can I raise something else? In this life there is consequence for sin. We know that because we experience it. But there’s also another consequence of sin outside of natural consequence is for a believer, your relationship with God. If you’re a believer and you’re constantly sinning, then that drives a wedge in your fellowship with God. You’re never going to be separated from Him because you can never be snatched out of His hand. You’re always secure in that. But you can like the prodigal son fall out of fellowship with your father. So that is a real life consequence of sin. But at the Judgment Seat of Christ, we don’t pay that consequence because Christ already paid for it. 

BOB: That’s a good point. But we’re still accountable. 

SAM: We’re accountable for what we’ve done. And we’ll be paid our wages, if you will, according to the good and the bad we’ve done. But in this life, we suffer the consequence of separation from God by means of sin. And we can ask for His forgiveness and be reconciled with Him in this life. And that’s what 1 John talks a lot about is we all sin, but we confess our sin and He’s faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us of all unrighteousness. 

But in that positional stance, if Christ didn’t die on the cross and atone for our sin, then we would, even if we had everlasting life, would be separated because that sin is still there. So He paid the price for the sin or he atoned for the sin, but we still have to be judged for the work we’ve done. So that’s kind of how I’ve been trying to understand the difference between a sin and a bad deed is the cost of it. 

BOB: I think that’s a good point. And keep in mind, Peter says that husbands are to treat their wives well so that your prayers may not be hindered. Or as you mentioned, 1 John 1:9, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us. Or 1 John 1:7, if we walk in the light as He is in the light, then the blood of Jesus cleanses from all sin. You see, we want ongoing cleansing. We want ongoing fellowship. And the problem with walking in the darkness is, as you said, the prodigal son ended up with famine. He ended up in want. No one was giving him anything. 

And so it seems that it’s very important for us to recognize accountability. Free Grace people are often criticized, as I said, because they say, our view promotes sin. Just the opposite. Our view says we’re accountable, now and forever for what we do. And we’ll be judged not according to our sins, but according to our works, good and bad. If that bothers us, I’d encourage you to study it out, but you can see all kinds of examples in the New Testament where there are negative consequences at the Judgment Seat of Christ. 1 John 2:28, “My little children abide in Him so that when He appears we may have confidence and not shrink back in shame at His coming.” How can you have shame unless somehow our bad works are being evaluated? And you have lots of other verses that we’re going to receive this crown of righteousness if we love the Lord Jesus Christ, if we do that. So there are negative consequences in the Bema, but they’re not because of our sins, they’re because of our works, our bad works. 

Well, I hope that helps Mark. And I hope you come out on the side of seeing that we are accountable for all that we do. Believers have eternal life, they’ll never lose that. Believers will have joy forever, but how full that life will be, how joyful it will be depends on what we do now. All right. Well, thanks and let’s remember to keep grace in focus. Amen. 

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On our next episode: is it better to never become a disciple than to become one and then fall away? Come back and join us and until then, let’s keep grace in focus.