A while back, at a college class designed to improve the knowledge of working pastors, the Book of Second Corinthians was part of the course of study. An acquaintance of mine was in attendance.

He said to the effect: "As the course of study led to II Corinthians 5:10 you could feel the tension mount in the room full of pastors. When the teacher came to the verse in question, she explained that there was no need to fear the Judgment Seat of Christ. No Christian would hear anything negative there."

My friend said you could feel the tension in the room relax.

Let us look at the verse again, understanding that the beema is a place where justice is administered.

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. (II Corinthians 5:10—NIV)

"We must all" certainly includes Christians, and perhaps the entire population of the earth.

"Appear" means to be made manifest.

"The judgment seat of Christ" is a court where justice is administered, not a place where only rewards are distributed.

"That each one may receive what is due him." Each Christian will receive what is due him. We have emphasized lawless grace for so long that we cannot accept we will receive what is due us. We are not adhering to the Scriptures today. We are preaching a false gospel, not the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.

We have departed from God's Word!

The Bible states clearly that each believer will be revealed at the beema of Jesus Christ and receive what is due him or her. If this is not true, then what verses of the Bible are true? The ones we have chosen to be true? Do we have a private interpretation of the Scriptures?

The Bible says we must all, each Christian, be revealed before the Judgment Seat. There we shall receive what is due us. There is no way around it. Either we accept the Scriptures as inspired by the Lord or else we do not.

Is Paul implying that mercy and grace shall intervene and we will not receive what is due us? If this were the case, Paul would have said so. There is no indication whatever in the sense and context of the verse that tells us somehow believers will be spared from what is due them.

God will go easy on the people of the world in the day of judgment because they have had so little light, so meager an understanding of God's Person and ways.

But Christians, especially those of our day who have been given so much spiritual understanding, shall be judged much more sternly than the secular population. To whom much has been given, of him shall much be required. To whom little has been given, of him little shall be required.

We have turned this eternal Kingdom principle upside down by our self-love, our unscriptural teaching of lawless grace.

To be continued.