The Judgment Seat of Christ

Question

In 1 Corinthians 3:15, where Paul’s talking about the Judgment Seat of Christ, he tells about a Christian “whose work is burned up and he suffers loss, but he is saved, yet so as through fire.” Will you tell me a little bit about this Christian and how he fits into the lordship-salvation scheme?

Answer (by John MacArthur)

We understand that when a person is saved, there is a total transformation. How do you know that? Because salvation is described in these terms, Galatians 2:20: “I am crucified with Christ.” Right? When we baptize these people, they go under the water, what does that symbolize? What? Death. When you’re crucified, what do you do? That kills you; you die. So, whatever you were when you were saved, what? Died. Galatians 2:20, “I am crucified with Christ.” “Nevertheless,” what happened? “I live.” What do we call that? Resurrection. We were buried with Him in baptism, and we’re risen with Him to walk in newness of life. So, salvation is death of the old, resurrection of the new. And as Arney said earlier, “If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation.”

Now, what then characterizes that new creation? First of all, that new creation is characterized by a new affection. You love God; you love Christ. If any man doesn’t love Christ, he’s anathema [condemned to hell]. So, a characteristic of salvation is, you love Christ. You don’t love Him as much as you should, but you love Him, right? Secondly, you hate sin. You don’t hate it as much as you ought to hate it, but you hate it. Thirdly, you desire to obey. So, the characteristic of a new life, then, is a love of Christ and God, a hatred of sin, and a desire to obey. Now, does that mean we always love like we should, we always hate sin like we should, and we always do what we should? No.

The truth of the matter is that our lives are going to be filled with a lot of things which will bring us no reward. Some things will bring us chastening. Some things are just neutral; they’re not moral--they’re just stuff that gets burned up. It isn’t that we’re going to be judged or punished; it’s just that when it comes to reward time, that’s sorted out. So, I believe that you’re a new creation: your faith will work, your love will labor, your hope will endure, you will be different--you will have different desires, different longings, different goals, different aspirations. But, you’ll still have in your life two things: sin and waste--just useless things. And when you come to the judgment seat of Christ, does the sin have to be dealt with there? Does it? No, why? Where was the sin dealt with? On the cross. So, we’re not talking about sin; that’s already dealt with. No condemnation, no issue.

But, when you get there, you’ve got what’s left of your life; the sin--that’s dealt with. What is left then is the righteous deeds--gold, silver, precious stones--and then the “stuff.” And when it comes time to reward you, the Lord will just consume the stuff, and what remains is the gold, silver, precious stones. That’s why, in a sense, it’s not only important that you avoid sin, it’s also important that you avoid waste in your life.

Remember Hebrews 12? In Hebrews 12, the writer says, “Lay aside”--for “we are encompassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses”--you know that? “Therefore, run the race…lay aside the sin and the weight which so easily besets us”--that’s in chapter 12.

He says, “Lay aside every encumbrance and the sin.” Well, encumbrance must be something other than sin, and what he is saying is, don’t clutter your life with needless stuff. So, you know, there are people who fill up--I call it people who fill up their life with trivia. It isn’t evil; it’s just insignificant. That’s the encumbrance. It’s like the illustration I used when I taught Hebrews was: now, you can run the 100-yard-dash with an overcoat if you want, but you’re not going to be very fast. And, when it comes to reward time, you’re going to be at the rear end. Why not junk the overcoat and run?

So I think what he is saying there is that at the judgment seat of Christ, even though we are redeemed and even though we are the children of God and even though our hearts have been changed and transformed and our desires are really right and we long to honor Christ, because we are still incarcerated in the unredeemed flesh, we can fill our lives with stuff that really has no eternal consequences. And that’s going to be just literally burned away. The fire here--know this--is not a fire of judgment. It’s just burning away the dross to purify the real stuff that is to be rewarded.