Are there degrees of reward in heaven?

Question 10063.

Are there degrees of reward in heaven? Scripture answers yes, and it does so often enough that I am always a little surprised how rarely the subject is preached. We are so anxious to protect grace from any hint of earning that we quietly drop a whole strand of New Testament teaching about the assessment of a believer’s life and service.

So let me say the two things together, because they belong together. Salvation is a free gift received by faith and can never be earned or forfeited. Reward is a different category altogether, and the New Testament says a great deal about degrees of reward given to those who are already saved.

Two categories that must not be confused

The distinction runs right through the New Testament. Eternal life is a gift: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). Nothing you do adds a penny to that account, because the account was settled at the cross.

Reward is what God freely chooses to give His children for service rendered out of love. It is not wages owed to a workman; even the ability to serve is His gift. But He has bound Himself to notice, and He has told us in advance that He will. Degrees of reward exist because God is a Father who takes pleasure in His children’s faithfulness, not because He runs a points system.

Once those two categories are kept apart, the teaching stops sounding threatening. Nobody is in danger of losing heaven. What is at stake is what you bring into it, and how much of your life turns out to have been built with materials that last.

The judgement seat of Christ

Paul writes, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Corinthians 5:10). The word is bema, the raised platform where a magistrate sat, and where victors at the games were awarded their prize.

That image matters. The bema is not the dock at the Old Bailey. It is not the Great White Throne, which is the judgement of the unsaved dead and a very different scene, as I explain in my answer on the Great White Throne judgment. The bema is where the family business is reviewed and the family rewards are handed out.

Romans 14:10-12 says the same thing in different words and adds that each of us will give an account of himself to God. Paul says “we,” including himself. If the apostle expected to stand there, I certainly expect to, and so do you.

Wood, hay, straw and gold

The clearest passage on degrees of reward is 1 Corinthians 3. Paul says that on the one foundation, which is Jesus, men build with “gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw,” and “each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire” (1 Corinthians 3:12-13).

Then comes the sentence that settles the question: “If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.” Some believers arrive with a great deal. Some arrive with almost nothing but themselves. All of them arrive.

I find that both sobering and enormously reassuring. Sobering, because a great deal of religious activity turns out to be straw. Reassuring, because the man whose life’s work goes up in smoke is still saved. Degrees of reward never become degrees of belonging.

The fire in that passage is not purgatory, and I want to say so plainly, since the imagery has been pressed into service for a doctrine the New Testament never teaches. The fire tests work, not workers. Nobody is being purified by suffering in order to qualify for entry. The believer walks out of that assessment saved, whatever happens to the pile he brought with him.

Ten cities and five cities

Jesus taught degrees of reward in story form. In the parable of the minas, one servant’s pound gains ten more and is told, “Well done, good servant! Because you have been faithful in a very little, you shall have authority over ten cities” (Luke 19:17). The next gains five and is set over five cities. Same master, same generosity, different outcomes.

Notice what the reward actually is. It is not a bigger mansion or a better seat. It is responsibility, scope, authority to serve. Faithfulness now is rewarded with more to do then, which tells you something about the nature of the life to come, as I set out in my answer on what we will do in heaven.

Jesus also promised reward for the smallest kindness done in His name, down to a cup of cold water given to a little one. God’s bookkeeping is not impressed by scale. He notices the unseen visit to a nursing home as readily as the platform ministry.

The crowns

Several passages speak of crowns, and the word is stephanos, the victor’s wreath rather than a monarch’s diadem. Paul mentions “an imperishable” wreath in 1 Corinthians 9:25 and the crown of righteousness in 2 Timothy 4:8, “which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.”

James speaks of the crown of life for the one who remains steadfast under trial, and Peter of the unfading crown of glory for faithful elders who shepherd willingly. These are not identical, which itself implies differentiation. Different faithfulness, different commendation.

And then Revelation 4:10 shows the elders casting their crowns before the throne. Whatever degrees of reward we receive will be given straight back to the One who made them possible. There will be no swagger in glory. There will be worship with something in our hands to offer.

Notice too that every crown is described as lasting. The athletes Paul watched at the Isthmian games competed for a wreath of wild celery that was brown within days. Whatever degrees of reward the Lord gives will still be there a million years on, which puts a rather different value on the trophies we chase in this life.

Will degrees of reward spoil heaven?

This is the objection I hear most, and it deserves an answer rather than a shrug. If some believers have more than others, will the rest feel cheated? The question assumes envy, and envy is precisely what will not exist there. Sin is what turns another person’s blessing into my grievance.

The old illustration still works. Take vessels of different sizes and lower them all into the sea. Each comes up completely full. Nobody is half satisfied. Capacity differs; fullness does not. Degrees of reward do not produce degrees of joy, because joy is not a share of a fixed quantity.

And remember who is doing the assessing. The Lord who weighs your service knows exactly what your circumstances cost you. The widow’s two coins were counted as more than the large sums of the wealthy. Nobody will be robbed at that platform, and nobody will be flattered.

Living now with that day in view

Paul’s response to the bema was not anxiety but ambition: “So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him” (2 Corinthians 5:9). John warns his readers to “watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward.” A full reward is worth wanting.

Motive turns out to matter as much as activity. Jesus warned about giving, praying and fasting to be seen, and said of those who perform for an audience, “they have received their reward.” Applause spent now cannot be spent twice. That is a searching thought for anyone in public ministry, myself included.

So the doctrine of degrees of reward is a spur, not a scoreboard. It tells the discouraged believer serving in obscurity that nothing is wasted, and it tells the busy religious professional that not everything counted here counts there.

There is also a quiet dignity in this doctrine for people whose service is invisible. The mother praying over a wayward child at two in the morning, the man who keeps the church building watertight for thirty years without thanks, the believer in a hostile country who cannot gather openly at all. None of it is missed, and none of it is undervalued by the One doing the assessing.

So, now what?

Take an honest look at the materials you are building with. Not the volume of your activity, but the motive behind it and the source of the strength in it. Work done in the flesh for the applause of people is straw, however impressive the photographs. Work done in love for Jesus is gold, however small.

And let the promise cheer you. The unnoticed prayers, the difficult marriage held together in faithfulness, the neighbour visited, the giving nobody knows about, all of it is recorded. “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done” (Revelation 22:12). What would you like to be doing when He arrives?

“Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.”

1 Corinthians 3:12-13, ESV