What is the Bema seat (judgment seat of Christ)?

Question 10110.

The Bema seat is the judgement seat of Christ, where believers will stand to have their service assessed and rewarded. It is not a trial to determine whether we are saved. That question was settled at the cross and received by faith, and no Christian will ever face it again. What happens at the Bema seat is the evaluation of what we did with the life and gifts we were given afterwards.

I find that most believers either ignore this doctrine entirely or are quietly terrified of it, and both responses come from the same mistake, which is confusing it with the Great White Throne. They are different events, with different people, at different times, for different purposes.

Where the word comes from

Bema is simply the Greek word for a raised platform or tribunal. It is used of Pilate’s judgement seat and of Gallio’s in Acts 18, so it can carry a judicial sense.

But the association Paul’s readers in Corinth would have felt most keenly was the athletic one. The Bema seat was the elevated platform at the games from which the judge watched the events and presented the wreaths to the winners. Corinth hosted the Isthmian games, so the image was local and vivid.

That background sets the tone. The Bema seat is a rostrum rather than a dock. The one seated on it has already dealt with our guilt, and he is now assessing our service.

The two texts that describe it

2 Corinthians 5:10 says that we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. Note the we. Paul includes himself, and he is writing to Christians.

Romans 14:10 to 12 says the same thing in the context of how we treat one another over disputable matters. We will all stand before the judgement seat of God, and each of us will give an account of himself. That is a striking place to put the doctrine, and I think it is deliberate.

1 Corinthians 3 gives us the mechanism. Each builder’s work is tested by fire. Gold, silver and precious stones survive. Wood, hay and straw do not. The Day will disclose it, Paul says, and the builder whose work is burnt up will suffer loss though he himself will be saved.

Salvation is not on the table

This is the point that must be nailed down before anything else. The believer’s sin was judged at Calvary, and there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Nothing at the Bema seat can reverse that.

The clearest evidence is in 1 Corinthians 3 itself. The man whose entire life’s work goes up in smoke is still saved, though as through fire. He loses reward, not salvation. If salvation were at stake, Paul could not have written that sentence.

So the Bema seat is a family matter. It is not a court determining status but a Father assessing stewardship, and the difference between those two is the difference between dread and healthy seriousness.

When does the Bema seat happen?

I hold that it takes place in heaven after the Rapture of the church and before the Second Coming, during the period when the Tribulation is running its course on earth.

The reason is the sequence in Revelation 19. When the armies of heaven follow Jesus out, they are already clothed in fine linen, bright and pure, and John tells us the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. The bride has made herself ready. The assessment has already happened.

That also fits the pattern that rewards are given at his coming. Paul speaks of receiving the crown on that Day, and the church’s Day arrives at the Rapture. I have written on the Rapture separately.

It is not the same as the Great White Throne

Confusing these two has caused an enormous amount of unnecessary fear. The Bema seat is for believers, concerns rewards, and takes place before the Millennium. The Great White Throne is for the unsaved dead, concerns final judgement, and takes place at the end of the Millennium.

Nobody appears at both. The names in the book of life are the dividing line, and if your name is there you will never stand before the throne of Revelation 20. I have set that judgement out in my answer on the Great White Throne.

Once you have the two apart, the Bema seat stops being a source of terror and becomes what the New Testament plainly makes it, a motivation.

What is being assessed?

Not the quantity of our activity but its quality and its motive. Paul’s fire tests what sort of work each one has done. Elsewhere he says the Lord will bring to light the things hidden in darkness and disclose the purposes of the heart.

That should relieve some people and worry others. A great deal of visible Christian service is done for reputation, and a great deal of hidden faithfulness is never noticed by anybody. The Bema seat corrects both errors at a stroke.

It also means that circumstances are taken into account. The widow’s two coins were assessed by what she had, not by what the wealthy gave. I am not judged by another person’s opportunities, and neither are you.

Will there be sorrow at the Bema seat?

Some Christians hold that there will be a moment of grief for wasted years, and they point to the language of suffering loss and to John’s exhortation not to shrink back in shame at his coming. Others hold that God wipes away every tear and that no sorrow can survive into glory.

I incline to a middle position. There will be an honest reckoning, and honesty about a wasted decade cannot feel like nothing. But it will be brief and it will be swallowed by joy, because the one assessing us is the one who died for us and wants nothing more than to say well done.

What I would not do is use the fear of that moment as a motivational tool from the pulpit. Paul motivates by love and by hope far more often than by shame.

Rewards and what they are for

Scripture speaks of crowns, of praise from God, of authority over cities in the kingdom, and of treasure in heaven. I take these as real rather than as poetic ways of saying that everyone gets the same thing.

But notice what is done with the crowns in Revelation 4. The elders cast them before the throne. Reward in the Bible is never a private trophy cabinet; it is capacity to honour Christ, given back to him with interest. I have written on the crowns and on degrees of reward.

So the answer to the objection that rewards would breed envy is that nobody in glory will want anything except for Jesus to be honoured, and a greater reward simply means a larger contribution to that.

How the Bema seat should change this week

Paul’s own response was to make it his aim to please him. Not to please the church, the denomination, the critics or himself, but him. That is a wonderfully simplifying ambition.

It also reorders our priorities away from the visible. If the Bema seat assesses hidden motives, then the prayer nobody heard and the kindness nobody recorded are not lesser works. They may be the gold.

And it puts our disagreements in perspective. Romans 14 raises the Bema seat precisely to stop Christians judging each other over secondary matters. Your brother answers to his own Master, and so do you.

One last practical thought. Because the Bema seat assesses stewardship rather than status, it takes seriously the ordinary shape of your week. The job, the family, the money, the hours, the words. Paul tells slaves in Colossae that whatever they do they are to work heartily as for the Lord, knowing they will receive the inheritance as their reward. If that could be said to a first-century household slave with almost no freedom of action, it can certainly be said to us.

So, now what?

If you are a believer who has been frightened of this, put the fear down. You will not be tried for your sins. They were tried already, in the body of Jesus, and the verdict cannot be reopened.

If you have been coasting, take it seriously. A day is coming when the work will be tested, and nobody standing there will wish they had given God less.

And if you serve in obscurity, be encouraged. Nothing done for Christ goes unrecorded, and the one on the platform saw all of it. What would you do differently this week if you really believed that?

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, ESV