Need Clarity on the Great White Throne Judgment and the Judgment Seat of Christ
Many greetings from Switzerland! Hope you are doing well and wish you a blessed autumn!
Colleen, do you have any thing in written form what the difference is between the Judgment seat of Christ and the big white throne?
—VIA EMAIL
Response: The Judgment seat of Christ is mentioned specifically in 2 Corinthians 5:10:
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.—2 Corinthians 5:10 LSB
It is also addressed in 1 Corinthians 3:9–15 and in 1 Corinthians 4:4,5:
For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building. According to the grace of God which was given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building on it. But each man must be careful how he builds on it. For no one can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident, for the day will indicate it because it is revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work. If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.—1 Corinthians 3:9–15 LSB
For I am conscious of nothing against myself, yet I am not by this acquitted. But the one who examines me is the Lord. Therefore do not go on passing judgment before the time, [but wait] until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and make manifest the motives of hearts. And then each one’s praise will come to him from God.—1 Corinthians 4:4, 5 LSB
The judgment seat of Christ is for believers who are saved. We aren’t told EXACTLY when/where this will occur, but it appears to be after our deaths. It is NOT a judgment of sin or a sentencing for punishment. It is for those who have been saved and born again and made eternally alive.
When we have been born again, we are led by the Holy Spirit to do work for God for the sake of the body of Christ. According to 1 Corinthians 3:9–15 quoted above, the foundation of the church, the body of believers consisting of those who are born again, has been laid by Paul and the apostles and prophets (Ephesians 2:20–22). As Paul says, no other foundation can be laid, so adding to the gospel of Jesus’ finished work is a false gospel. Believers are called to build on that foundation of Christ crucified and resurrected.
The born-again will have works that they do in their lives as believers (the works done in the flesh—the works literally done by believers in the world) that have built on the foundation of Christ. Those works will have eternal value: people will be led to know Jesus and trust Him; people will be encouraged in the Lord and supported to trust Him in difficult situations; the church and the believers will be built up in Christ by the ministry of the members of the body as they interact with each other on the basis of the true gospel of the Lord Jesus and our spiritual blessings which are ours in Him because of the new covenant.
Other works of believers will not be built on the foundation of Christ but will perhaps be the outworking of the person’s “good ideas” or misunderstandings or lack of discernment. An example I think of this kind of “work” is the legacy of Walter Martin’s being deceived by the Adventists in 1955 and declaring them to be true brothers and sisters in Christ and removing Adventism from the classification of “cult” and placing it in the classification of “heterodox Christians”. We know he was deceived and that he left a legacy of confusion in the Christian community about Adventism. I am not the Lord and cannot judge anything before its time, but as an example I would say the fruit of Martin’s deception might be a work that is burned up. Yet Martin himself will be saved. He performed so many works based on the true gospel and left a legacy of so much gospel insight and helpful teaching for the body of Christ.
I suspect that all of us will have some works that are burned up because they were built not on Christ in full submission in faith but on our own human analysis and misunderstanding. But the judgment seat of Christ will not be about SIN. All who appear before the judgment seat of Christ are saved, believing Christians. At this judgment they will receive rewards from Him for the works they did that have eternal value. We aren’t told exactly what the rewards will be nor exactly how the Lord judges. What we are encouraged to do, though, is to trust Jesus and learn to lean on Him as we live our lives, walking where He leads, trusting Him for wisdom as He leads us into situations where we need to speak truth and defend the gospel and minister to people.
The Great White Throne judgments pictured in Revelation 20 is the final judgment at the end of the millennium when the Lord Jesus judges all wickedness, throwing Satan into the lake of fire and all unbelievers into it as well. No believer will stand at the Great White Throne Judgment because believers’ sins have already been judged in Jesus on the cross. As He hung on the cross, He experienced the wrath of God for human sin which had been imputed to Him in order for Him to pay the price of human death for human sin. The Lord Jesus bore the wrath of God for the sins of all who believe. Those who do not trust Christ will not receive the remission of their sin by the blood of Jesus.
Those who believe and are born again by the Lord Jesus as He gives us new hearts, new spirits, and His own Holy Spirit pass from death to life (see Ephesians 1:13,14, and John 5:24). We will not come before Him for judgment for our sins at the Great White Throne Judgment.
Either our sins are on Jesus and have been fully atoned by His experiencing God’s wrath and the death that our sins deserved and by His resurrection which shatters our curse of death, or our sins remain on us. If they remain on us, we will stand before the Great White Throne for our eternal sentence.
Believers, though, will face the Lord Jesus for His judgment of the works done “in the flesh” during our time as believers on earth. We will receive rewards for the works done on the basis of the gospel of the Lord Jesus’ finished atonement, but if our works were not based on Christ, those works will burn up although we ourselves will be saved “yet so as through fire”.
Being Transformed By Revelation
I read the main article in the Proclamation! magazine I receive every Friday and have recently been reading more and more of the different letters and articles. I recently read in one of them (Sorry I can’t remember which) one of the writers stated that yes, he/she is still Adventist because they believe that Jesus is indeed returning for us. I think I like that line of thinking. Just leave off the Seventh-day and please everyone.…
My recent and ongoing study of Revelation has been very encouraging to me in my Christian walk. I’m using a study that has me read about one chapter each week and gives prompts to write my thoughts. “What do you think this means?” “Where else do you find this in the Bible?” There’s lots of writing. The only real reading is Scripture text. I’ve also paired it with reading from Amir Tsarfati’s book Revealing Revelation which I’ve read twice before, but somehow all the writing through the study and leading by the Holy Spirit are opening up more and more to me. I also ordered a copy of an Adventist publication Daniel and Revelation. Just curious to see what Adventists claim as Revelation truth and how in the world did they come to their conclusions (since so much of my family is Adventist). I’ve paired all that with listening to your Podcasts on Revelation, I’m learning a LOT!
So many people, even Adventists, do not study or read Revelation aside from the cherry-picked verses.
Why do people shy away from this book of the Bible? Here is a little something I wrote while thinking about the situation:
God Sent his son Jesus to this earth for a purpose. That purpose was served and culminated in Jesus’ death and resurrection which is the source of our own salvation and righteousness through our faith. In Jesus’ time on earth He had family, disciples, and friends that probably only numbered in the hundreds. There were many who saw and believed he was the Son of God, but these may have only numbered in the thousands. After Jesus’ resurrection he spent time with his disciples on earth for only a matter of weeks as they were given instruction for marching forward. John, the author of Revelation, was among these. These disciples went into the world, which at the time was small in comparison to our world today. They established the early churches spreading the Gospel, the Good News. Near the end of John’s life, he was imprisoned on the Island of Patmos where he was given an extraordinary vision handed down from God, to his Son Jesus, to an Angel and then to John. He was instructed to write everything down to spread to everyone! This he accomplished, and his book of Revelation, or the Unveiling, became the last book in our present-day Bible. It was important enough for God to give to John and have him write for this reason. He wanted it to be spread to ALL so that we would know what is to come in His plan for our world. Yet our churches don’t teach it.
So you can see how I’ve been spending my waking hours. Revelation! I start first thing in morning and keep jumping back in throughout the day.
—VIA EMAIL
Write to: proclamation@gmail.com
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