The true assessment of the work God has done in and through believers will be disclosed on that day.īelievers will not be judged for sin at the judgment seat of Christ. First Samuel 16:7 declares that “God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” “There is no creature hidden from His sight,” the writer of Hebrews adds, “but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do” (Heb. All hypocrisy and pretense will be stripped away all temporal matters with no eternal significance will vanish like wood, hay, and stubble, and only what is to be rewarded as eternally valuable will be left. Each will discover the real verdict on his or her ministry, service, and motives. In that day, the full truth about their lives, character, and deeds will be made clear to each believer. Nor do believers’ hearts need to be made manifest to the omniscient God, who already knows every detail of their lives. Believers will be too preoccupied with the unveiling of their own deeds to pay attention to the revealing of others’. Others hold that the disclosure of which Paul writes will be to other believers, a view also without biblical support. Some have argued that believers’ secret motives and heart attitudes will be made manifest to the holy angels there is, however, no biblical support for such speculation. Hughes writes, “To be made manifest means not just to appear, but to be laid bare, stripped of every outward façade of respectability, and openly revealed in the full and true reality of one’s character” ( The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, The New International Commentary on the New Testament, 180). Phaneroo ( appear) means, “to make manifest,” “to make clear,” “to make visible,” or “to reveal.” Commenting on the meaning of phaneroo, Philip E. That knowledge produced in Paul strong motivation to please God in this life. The strong terms must and all stress the inevitability and comprehensiveness of this event. That will take place in the future when believers must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. (5:10)Driving Paul’s noble ambition was the knowledge that there would be a penetrating uncovering of the depths of his heart by the Lord Himself. The following is an excerpt from The MacArthur New Testament Commentary on 2 Corinthians 5.įor 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. The first is the declaration of Rev 5:10 that the twenty-four elders “will reign upon the earth,” and the. This position rests on two pieces of evidence. And since the events of Revelation 5 allegedly occur after the Rapture of the Church and prior to the outpouring of judgments during the Tribulation period, the Bema must, therefore, occur in a timeframe between the Rapture and the Tribulation. The argument declares, by implication, these elders have already received their reward to rule at the Judgment Seat. 5 Revelation 5:10 declares that the twenty-four elders “ will reign on the earth” (emphasis added). Some who hold this view make the case that the pronouncement of Rev 5:10 demonstrates that “the Bema Seat has already occurred” prior to the Tribulation judgments being poured out upon the earth. Evidence For The Bema Occurring During The Tribulation Dwight Pentecost represents this view by asserting that this appraisal of believers “takes place immediately following the translation of the church out of thisĮarth’s sphere.” 3 This appears to be the generally accepted viewpoint among pre-tribulational, premillennial Bible teachers. Many Evangelicals believe the Judgment Seat of Christ will transpire in heaven, between the occurrences of the Rapture of the Church and the return of Christ to the earth. Major View: The Judgment Seat Of Christ Will Occur During The Tribulation We should seek to understand all that we can discover about the Bema, including its timing: when will the Judgment Seat of Christ occur? II. Since this great, eschatological event will determine each believer’s eternal experience, 2 it should be viewed as an enormously important event. Thus, it is a valuation of the works 1 of all believers who have lived prior to this dramatic assessment. It is the public examination, by Jesus Himself, of the past faithfulness of every believer in Christ (OT saints included). Most JOTGES subscribers immediately recognize the Judgment Seat of Christ (the Bema) as an eschatological event-a significant, future event foretold by Bible prophecy. Journal: Journal of the Grace Evangelical SocietyĪrticle: When Is The Judgment Seat Of Christ?
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