THE JUDGMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN’S WORKS
By G. P. Raud
God
recompenses every man, whether believer or unbeliever. He recompenses
every deed that man has done or will do. He pays back either good or
bad. "For the son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with
his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to
his works" (Matt. 16: 27).
"And,
behold, I come quickly; and my reward
is with me, to give to every
man according as his work shall
be" (Rev. 22: 12).
No one escapes His judgment, Jew or Gentile, saved or unsaved.
Now
we come to the believer. In Romans 6: 23 we
read that the gift of God is eternal life to the
one who believes. We don’t work for a gift; we don’t work to gain
eternal life. We believe and we have it. And this eternal life
abides forever. When a person is converted, he receives the Holy Spirit
who comes to abide in him for ever.* Salvation is a
free and eternal gift. "And this is the record,
that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his
Son" (1 John 5: 1).
[* It is questionable if the Holy
Spirit abides in every believer, regardless of their behaviour. I
personally do not believe He does. There
are many Scriptures which teach us, that His indwelling is conditional
and only with those believers who are obedient to Christ, and follow
Him fully: "And we are witnesses of these
things; and so is the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given TO THEM THAT OBEY
HIM" (Acts 5: 32).
Compare also with: John 15: 2, 4, 5, 6; Rom. 8: 13. See also "Power Lost and Recovered" and “The
Persomal Indwelling of the Holy Spirit”.].
Rewards, however, are determined by the believer’s works;
whatever his vocation or station in life, the works he performs after conversion settle his reward. Christians
sometimes say carelessly, "Oh, I am all right. I am saved." And then they act worse than the world,* although their lives as children of God ought
to be holy, worthy of the Lord, filled with the Holy Spirit to His glory.
[We see examples of this evil behaviour throughout
the Scriptures: and, the behaviour of a certain dentist (a member of
"What
shall We Have?"
"Then answered Peter and said unto him, Behold, we have
forsaken all, and followed thee; what shall we have therefore?
And Jesus said unto them, Verily, I say unto you, that ye which have followed
me, in the regeneration when
the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit
upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of
Our
Lord here directs Peter’s eyes away from the present and turns them to the
future glory when the Son of man will be reigning upon the earth. The
twelve were now apostles, chosen leaders; and they sought to know what would be
their reward because they had forsaken
all for Christ. Their reward was not in the present, but in the
future, and it consisted in their reigning in His kingdom. Will they
be sitting just anywhere, as some believers say,
"I’ll be satisfied if I only get to heaven"?
That prospect would never have contented Peter. The apostles will sit on
thrones, which are assigned only to persons who reign, who wield authority over
others. To reign is to hold authority, issue commands, put down
rebellions, and maintain order.
We
see that the apostles will have their reward, but what are we going to
have? "And if children, then heirs; heirs of
God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him,
that we may be also glorified together"
(Rom. 8: 17). One of the hardest words
in the Bible is ‘suffer’. We
don’t like it. The old man rebels against it; and the new man, also, very
often. A special glory awaits, however, all who suffer with Christ and for Him. This
promise of Romans 8: 17 is not simply the
glory of being made like Christ when He comes; it goes beyond that.
"For I reckon that the sufferings of this present
time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us"
(v. 18).
Most
of us do not know what suffering for Christ’s sake really is. Easy-going
Christian service robs us of reward. If we do not press forward and
suffer for Him, we shall lose our reward. Few Christians understand that true service is always accompanied by
suffering. We shall suffer too if we choose God’s best for us.
His best is always difficult, although possible; and our nearest and dearest may oppose our choice. The enemy will arouse everything against us in order
to turn us away from His best.
Striving for a Crown
"Every man that striveth for the mastery
is temperate in all things. Now they do
it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. I therefore so
run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: but I keep under my body, lest after I
have preached to others, I myself, should be a castaway" (1 Cor. 9: 25, 27), or
should "be rejected" (R.V.) from being awarded the crown. These
familiar words ought to challenge us to examine ourselves to learn whether we
run uncertainly or whether we will assuredly receive this incorruptible crown.
"Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall
declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every
man’s work of what sort it is. If any
man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be
saved; yet as by fire" (1 Cor. 3: 13-15). The fire into which the work
of the believer will be put is not for pruging or
cleansing; it is for testing, to prove what sort of work it is. It will
manifest the quality of his work. Some Christians hold that at that day
all their unworthy past will be cleansed away, with not a trace of it
remaining. Not so. Their work will be tested by fire and will
determine their eternal reward.
The
child of God may ask, "Why worry about
rewards? We don’t need to know about them. We shall get to heaven
and then everything will be all right." But the Lord wants us
to receive His full reward, all that He has in store
for us. If at His judgment seat we get anything less, we have come that
much short of glorifying Him. The more
reward, the more praise and glory to His matchless name. It has been said
that to-day’s toil is the measure of
to-morrow’s glory. If we do not toil our loss
will be great.
Rulers in the
The
kingdom of Christ when He returns to reign on earth will cover the whole world,
fulfilling such prophecies as this: "The seventh
angel sounded; and there was great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms
of this world are become the
kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign
for ever and ever" (Rev. 11: 15).
For His great kingdom, Christ must have
a considerable staff of administrators. Most Christians, seeing little of
the future which God has planned for them, do not understand that He has called
us to rule with Christ in His kingdom as His
administrators. With a vague exception they look forward to an eternity
where all their time is occupied with singing hallelujahs and casting their
crown before the throne of God. Eternity has in store for us far more
than that.
"Behold, A king
shall reign in righteousness, and
princes shall rule in judgment" (Isa. 32: 1).
The Lord Jesus Christ will reign as King of all the earth, and with Him will be
many reigning princes. Now God seeks and prepares
the future rulers for His kingdom. When we pray "Thy kingdom come," let us remember that we shall
reign with Him "if so be that we suffer with
him, that we may be also glorified
together" (Rom. 8: 17); "if we suffer, we shall
also reign with him" (2 Tim. 2: 12).
The Servant Who Lost Everything
The
last servant mentioned in the parable of Luke 19:
22 didn’t do anything. A lazy, indifferent follower of the Lord,
he earned nothing with his pound. What happened to him in the
judgment? He lost even his one pound: "And
he saith unto him, Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant. Thou knewest that I
was as austere man, taking up that I laid down, and reaping that I did not sow;
Wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the
bank, that at my coming I might have required mine own with usury? And he said unto them that stood by, Take
from him the pound, and give it to him that hath ten pounds" (vv. 22-25). We profit much by studying this
parable and learning the lesson that we
shall suffer great loss in the judgment if we do not perform faithfully what he
commits to our hands.
"I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have
kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness,
which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love
his appearing"; (2 Tim. 4: 7, 8).
"Blessed is the man that endureth temptations, for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the
Lord hath promised to them that love him"
(James 1: 12).
The
Word of God teaches that great, eternal rewards are available for believers,
but that only those who work hard for
them receive them. God offers us
crowns and conditions stated in the Word, and He will grant them to us only
if we meet the conditions. May
God give every one of us grace to receive His full reward at the judgment seat
of Christ.
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