The Judgment Seat (Bema) of Christ pt 2
2 Corinthians 5:10 · Roger Henderson · Apr 10, 2022
Letters to the Corinthians, No. 103
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261926383453

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Well, good morning. We're going to continue on from last week. You know, it sounds kind of, reading those passages, it sounds kind of scary, doesn't it? Well, at least it cuts the way it appears to me. So hopefully we're going to change that opinion, if you had that opinion. If you didn't have that opinion, right on. But if you have that opinion, it's not to be a scary deal. It's going to be a wonderful time.

And I'm a little bit disturbed that that translation has the tribunal of God. That's almost the whole reason I'm up here today. It's not a tribunal. It's a reward ceremony. So let me find the translator. I don't know what I could do to him. Don't translate it that way. It's not good. Okay, I'll try to show you why. It's just not my opinion. Okay, so this is part two. So let's look at the outline.

And actually, there's just some fantastic verses coming up. We're on verse 10 right now. And there's just some fantastic verses coming up. And Mike gets to do a good part of those fantastic verses. He gets to do verse 14, which is coming up. Actually, next week he'll be doing a Resurrection Sunday message. But there's a fantastic verse 14, which says, for the love of Christ controls us. And it goes on.

And then he gets to do another cool verse, down in verse 17. which is, we are now a new creation in Christ, just a fantastic, we talk about that verse so much, I'm gonna talk about it today as well, that verse is used so much here at Holly Hills, it's just such a, and we are a new creation in Christ, and that's wonderful. So he gets, coming attractions, we're gonna have some really cool stuff to talk about. Okay, so here's my picture from my brother Hal from back in 2004. So last week we talked about the fall.

This is major judgments in scripture. The fall and the cross as judgments. So this week we're going to go back over the judgments again just briefly to kind of put this so-called judgment, the bema, in context. So the next judgment on this chart is the tribulation. That's certainly a judgment, a seven-year judgment.

Right after the rapture occurs this event I want to talk about today, the bema, the judgment seat of Christ, or the reward seat of Christ, which is even better. And then there's the judgment of the nations. And then at the end of the millennial kingdom, into the thousand years, there's a great white throne judgment. And then there's other things that happen after that. The ones that are in red are the ones we talked about this week and last, but the three that I want to kind of contrast here are the judgment, the bema, the judgment of the nations, and the great white throne. And the reason for doing that is because many people, even entire denominations, will take those three judgments, the judgment seat of Christ, the nations, and the great white throne, and they'll they will teach them or they will make you think they are all talking about the same event and they're not. So let's just look at this chart. This contrasts the judgment of the nations and the great white throne judgment. So the time period, the timing of this.

When does the judgment of the nations happen? Well if you look in Matthew 25 in those verses you'll see that it's right after the Tribulation and the seven year period and the Second Advent of Christ. And Christ is going to talk about what's going to happen during that of the nations. Then you look in Revelation 20 there for the Great White Throne Judgment and you're going to see this judgment is immediately after the thousand years.

So they're quite a bit different time periods. One's on earth and one's in heaven. The nation is on earth The Great White Throne is in heaven. One is about living nations on the earth that made it through the tribulation period. Some are believers, some are not.

We'll see. And then the one, the Great White Throne, they're the dead. They're all unbelievers. They're the dead from all ages. And they're resurrected for judgment. So just stop for a minute here. That doesn't sound like anything to do with believers, right? I mean, they're the dead, they're the unbelievers from all ages, so why would you want to go there and make that for believers? Let some do.

Okay, the basis of the judgment, the one for the nations is acceptance or rejection of Christ. the one for the great white throne, they've already rejected Christ and the Lord's going to show them, He's going to read them through the books and He's going to show them that they have rejected Christ and He's going to show that their not accepting Christ prevents them from entering heaven. So here's kind of the basis in more detail. So in the nations we have believers and unbelievers. The believers are those ones that, there's a statement that says, to the extent there in Matthew 25, to the extent that you did this to one of these brothers of mine, you did it to me." It talks about giving them comfort, water, serving them, whatever. And it's talking about, he looks back over the tribulation period and says, these brothers of mine, I think it speaks of Israel.

And the unbelievers are the ones that did not do things out of faith for Christ. They rejected Christ's messengers. And then on the Great White Throne we have, and here's where the books are open, two kinds of books, the Book of Life, and the Unbeliever's Name are not found in the Book of Life as well. Then there's another book, it's a little hard to read, you have to read that section carefully, but there's a Book of Works, and they're judged out of the Book of Works.

And what always astounds me is they're judged on their own merit. If anyone ever asks you to be judging your own merit as a Christian, say, I don't want to be judging my own merit. I want to be judging on Christ's merit. That's the only way we have any hope. And that's the only way to salvation, through Christ's merit, none of our own merit.

Okay, the conditions, there's no resurrection mentioned in the nations. There is a resurrection in the Great White Throne. No books are mentioned in the nations. Books are mentioned in the Great White Throne. He talks, you know, the Lord is a judge in both of these. He's called the Son of Man in the Matthew passage and he called the Lord Jesus in the Revelation passage.

And the results are, The believers go to the kingdom. The believers that came out of the tribulation period go into the millennial kingdom and then to eternal life. The unbelievers go to the lake of fire. And the ones that were dead already, that were resurrected for this judgment, they go to the lake of fire.

So pretty, pretty somber stuff here. But now let's look at the good news. Okay, so this is one of the verses that was read. And this is, I'm gonna repeat a little bit from last week, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. So I think it's really critical here, this word judgment seat is one word in the original, it's the word bema, and it's primarily for a step, and it's translated that way, this step, in Acts 7.5, the step. But it really denotes a raised platform, reached by steps, So what's interesting, so it's this thing called judgment seat. It is not really a seat, it's a step or a platform, a step up. You're raised up above, like I'm up above this auditorium a little bit.

So it was used that way in ancient times. In the Grecian games, according to Pentecost, it says, in Athens, it was called the bima, or reward seat, From here, the umpire rewarded all the contestants. So you can envision after a sporting event, like in the Olympics, they come up and you reward them. You put a wreath on their head, you give them a gold medal or whatever it is.

But what's interesting, it was never used of a judicial bench, never used as a judgment. So that's why I had a problem with that one translation, a tribunal. It's not that at all. This word in its core is primarily a raised platform. So our brother Hal, just like I mentioned here, he says, well, why in the world are we calling it judgment seat? Let's call it reward seat. Let's have the true meaning be presented. OK. So now. Let me put them all up here. So the rest of the message is going to talk about these six points.

And actually last week we kind of covered the big picture of the BEMA, the reward seat. But questions come up and there are some really interesting words that appear. in the original that will help us. One of the goals here is to, what is it gonna be like? What is gonna happen at the judgment seat?

And you know, you hear a lot of different things. You hear people saying, well, boy, I'm gonna, you know, and they use examples. They say, well, this lady in our church, she prayed all the time. Boy, she's gonna have just piles of, you know, she's gonna have a little small fire because only a few things will burn up for her. but our brother over here, so-and-so, he's gonna have a gigantic bonfire, you know, and there's all these allusions to all these crazy ideas. Isn't any of that true? I mean, you know, there's all kinds of, and I presented some pictures last week of what people think it looks like. Well, hopefully, going through some word studies here and asking some questions will give you a better view.

And our brother Hal took a shot at what's the Bema gonna be like? And I've tried to improve that. Our brother Hal isn't here to defend himself, so he's going to have to wait, you know, have to wait till glory to see, you know, who is right, who is more accurate maybe.

Okay, so first of all, believers are going to stand and appear. We have a couple of verses that talk about stand and appear, and those are different Greek words. We're going to look at those words. The believer's works at the Bema are either good or worthless and are tested by fire. The believer's works are built upon the foundation of Jesus Christ. And that's really kind of critical, something that I didn't, until I started this study, I didn't actually fully comprehend. All our works, whether they're worthless or good works that Christ did through us, they're built on this foundation.

But the Lord, that foundation cannot last for eternity. It cannot last, and we're gonna see what he does with that. And that's part of this whole burning up process. And one of the key questions is, will we be aware of our worthless works that will be burned up? Will we feel remorse? Will we feel guilty, disappointed? Is that gonna be part of the picture there at the reward seat? And are we going to confess and give an account there at the reward seat?

The verses say those kind of words, but let's see if we can kind of dig down and see what it's really saying. Okay. So to do this, I want to compare a couple of verses. And Jim read both of these. So the first verse is Romans 4.10.

It says, But you, why do you judge your brother? Or again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. Or the King James has Christ. What's interesting is, I don't, and I've actually, I need probably Roy's help here, but anyway, the textual background for King James is different, I believe, than like the New American Standard, so. Anyway, the original word is actually for God, is theos, is God. So anyway, I think, but anyway, most people believe, and I do as well, this is talking about the judgment seat of Christ. And the verse we have in 5.10 is, we must all appear, he uses the word appear rather than stand, before the judgment seat of Christ, and so on.

So let's look at that, okay? Stand, it's peristomy. It's literally, and this is really cool, it's to stand beside or near. So think about it, to stand beside or near. So what does that mean? This is really gonna help us. It implies we have a resurrection body, certainly, and that we're standing by or beside him, beside the Lord, in a position. It shows our nearness to Christ.

We are observing His lovingly revealing to us. You know what I kind of came to the conclusion, and it's nothing, is that who's going to be in control of this judgment? We're not. We're not there giving our story. He's rewarding us and telling us what He did through us. We're not saying much except praise the Lord. That's the shortened version. But we're not saying much.

And I think that's where maybe going astray, you say, well, I'm there feeling sorry, or I'm saying, well, I'm sorry, Lord, I did this or that. No, we're not doing that at all. That never makes it. That can never be in heaven with us. We are not standing before him as one before a judge. I think that's really critical.

The other word, okay, so that's the first word, where he's standing by us, so it'd be like he would be standing next to me at the judgment seat. Isn't that kind of a cool picture? It's not like, think if you go to court, right? Like Judge Judy, she's up there looking down at you, and you're going, ah, okay, Judge, I won't do that anymore. The Lord's standing next to us. Isn't that a cool picture? I mean, I think it's just, it's wonderful. Okay, that's the first word. The second word, appear, it's the idea of, it's in the passive voice, which is interesting.

It's to be made manifest or uncover, lay bare. Actually, take the lid off is another translation. So the Lord, we're not gonna reveal our dirty laundry, so to speak. He's gonna do that, but he's not doing it an interesting way. We'll see here in a bit. Our works will be laid open or uncovered, and because it's passive voice, it's by Christ. He's the one doing the action. It implies that we are not aware at the present time of the quality of our work.

And that's where it's kinda cool. This picture I'm gonna show, it shows a wood, hay, and stubble, and the gold, silver, and precious stone, and they're all there, they're all in our basket, so to speak. And the Lord's gonna say, no, that can't be there, that can't be there, that can't be there. Only these can pass, can come through to heaven, basically.

That's what he's, and this verse in, Romans 12.16, the B part. I've always used this for unbelievers, but I think it actually could apply to believers. It says in Romans 2.16b, it says, God will judge the secrets or hidden things of men through Christ Jesus. So pretty cool. So I think that could apply to this situation here. Okay, so two more verses to compare.

Again, our same verse, 2 Corinthians 5.10. So this time we're talking about so that each may be recompensed for his deeds or works, whether good or bad.

And then the verse in 1 Corinthians 3.12, verse 13, each man's work will become evident or manifest. So let's look at those two. So the first part, it's whether good or bad, good or worthless. it will be revealed by fire the type of work.

It's either going to be, there's only six possibilities, right? Wood, hay, stubble, that's what we call the worthless works. Because those can't last, right? They burn up. But gold, silver, and precious stone are you know, for the most part, indestructible.

I mean, if you take in the human thing, given enough, you know, firepower, you probably can take care of those, but this is a, you know, the Lord is using pictures here for us. Each man's work will become manifest will become, it's gonna happen, it's a future chance, will become manifest, so at that time, will come into a new state of being. And I was kind of thinking about what does that imply? And they're gonna appear or be visible. So let's see if I can put that together. So the type of our works, either good or bad, is not known by us, but it's gonna be made visible.

So the Lord's either gonna, it's gonna come into a new state of being, is what that verb says, ginomai. So it's, the new state of being will be, I believe, in one case, this new state of being is burned up, destroyed. The other state of being is it's been purified, if you will, it's gone through the fire. So that's kind of the idea there, I believe.

Okay. So let's just kind of review again. I think it's very worthwhile to see, well, what are good and bad works? Let's talk about that, or worthless works. So the word good is this idea of being good in character, God's character, or His constitution, or beneficial in effect. So here are some aspects of that for good works. First of all, good works, you know, think about good works.

In Scripture, the key verse on this about good works in Scripture is Ephesians 2.10, and it says, For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, so that we may walk in them.

So just, so basically the points here are is that he has, he is the plan maker. He makes the plans, he determines the good works, And he asks us by faith to live out those works, to perform those works. And there's some other aspects to that. God is the one who energizes us, both to will and to do his plan. And that comes out of, for it is God who is at work in us, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

He also is the one who begins a good work, and he sees it to completion. Haven't you often thought sometimes, you know, things are going rough in your life, and you say, boy, I started off good, you know, and then all of a sudden things kind of went bad? Or I got sick, or this happened, or that happened, or, you know, the trials of life came. I'm never going to complete what I got started. Well, God says, no. I began a good work in you, and I'm going to complete it."

And that's Philippians 1.6, a very familiar verse.

So he is a planner of the works. He's going to make sure that they're executed to his desire. God's criteria for good works, it fulfills his eternal purpose. And His eternal purpose is to declare His glory, to reveal His glory, to share His glory, and then to be glorified. And what amazingly, He's glorified in our works, which are in essence His works.

I mean, have you thought of the deal we get? This is the most incredible deal ever. He prepares the works. and he gives us credit and rewards us for it. It's his works that he prepared and said, I just want you to, by faith, do those. And he's gonna give us credit and reward for those works. It's pretty amazing. They're imperishable and they're viewed in scripture here as gold, silver, and precious stone.

Okay, so on the other side we have the bad. The bad works, and actually the idea is a sense of being worthless. Actually one translation is good for nothing. These are good for nothing works. They're not good for anything. So here are some characteristics of those works. And the main thing about these worthless works is, is this first bullet point.

The source is not Christ. The source is you. You know, it's me. It's that me inside, right? Myself, the self life. The Adamic life, if you will. The sin nature. They are not out of faith. They can't please God. They don't glorify God. Only good works can glorify God.

They're perishable. So, you know, and the perishable wood, hay, stubble. And, you know, everyone that I've read always puts, makes the analogy. It doesn't exactly say the wood, hay, and stubble, but the analogy is just so obvious, it seems like it has to be right. The wood, hay, and stubble are the worthless works. The gold, silver, and precious stone are the good works.

So you don't exactly see those words, but I certainly think they're there by implication. The worthless works will be burned up, literally decided to be burned down, totally consumed. Okay, so with that quick review. Okay, so now let's talk about foundation.

It says in 1 Corinthians 3.10, the C part in verse 11, it says, but each man must be careful how he builds on it, the foundation, if you read the previous verse. For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. So that's a foundation.

Okay, so here's a picture which I borrowed from my brother Hal. Actually, Andrew, he got to be pretty good with his graphics. And this is from 2004. So here he shows the six kinds of works. The foundation is Jesus Christ. And the verse says is, for the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, there's no other foundation. So it hurts my head a little bit. Why would the Lord allow me to build bad stuff or worthless stuff on a good foundation, on him? And from that verse, he says, for a believer, there's no other foundation. We have Christ in us, so it's sort of that idea. And it hurt my head a little bit, but I said, okay, Lord, I got all six things there. They're all in the foundation of Jesus Christ, but some don't belong there.

That's kind of the message. Okay, first part of this is, we just recovered this, the worthless works, the sources of flesh, they're perishable, and they glorify self. And I had this little paragraph I got from my, I taught this section back a year or so ago. It's been a long, 1 Corinthians, right? That was last year or year before, I wouldn't know where that was.

So this little paragraph I kind of thought, this is kind of the, take Ephesians 2.10 and flip it around.

This is a work that God did not prepare beforehand. But we have decided that this work will please God, so we do it in our own power and strength. So that's a worthless work. We decided, now maybe we didn't do that, actually think through that process, but somehow we did. So what's the opposite of that? It's a good work. The source is Christ. It's imperishable. It glorifies God.

And this is Ephesians 2.10. This is a work that God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in it, and by faith and trust in Christ, we do walk in this work. And he's gonna give us, he will give us credit for that work. But they're all in the foundation of Jesus Christ.

And that's what, I struggle with that. The verse says that. For no man, speaking of believer, can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. There's nothing, for the believer, there's no other foundation. So this is actually why we need the Bema. We've got to clean up that foundation. It's got some dirty stuff on it, worthless stuff on it. OK. And we're going to have a picture of how we clean it up. But before that, we have a question. This is Hal's question. It's a pretty cool question. Most people would be afraid to ask this question. Will we be aware of our worthless works that will be burned up?

So are we gonna say, are we gonna say, oh no, oh, I thought that was a good word, Lord. See, that sort of shows there's a dialogue going on. Maybe there's not, Lord, I don't know. Maybe there'll be a dialogue. What do I know? But anyway, I don't think there's a dialogue.

I think the Lord just says, you know, here's what it is, and you'll praise him for it. And so our brother Hal takes the opinion that it's for the following reasons he thinks that we will not be aware of the worthless works that are burned up. You say, well, how's that gonna happen? Is he gonna put a blindfold on us or what's gonna happen? Okay. It says, we appear at the Bema in our glorified body.

Remember we've been raptured? So the timing of this, many people think that it's, and I would agree with them, it's very close after the rapture. Some even think it's in the air, I don't know. That might be a little bit much, but anyway, it's very close after the rapture.

We are complete, perfect, not a trace of shame or sin. wrong motives, which are sin, that produce the worthless works, have been forgiven. All our sins have been forgiven. So the wrong motives, we might thought they were good motives, but they still were us, they were the wrong motives, they've been forgiven. The source of the wrong motives, the sin nature, has been removed, right? We no longer have our sin nature. Praise the Lord. Okay? All that remains, and this is a key point here, all that remains is a product of our sin nature, which is a worthless work.

And I was trying to think, get my hands around, so what is that? What is that? So, let's say you, I'm gonna do something for the Lord, and you, you know, you did something for the Lord, and you thought, boy, that's, but it turned out not to be from the Lord. The effect of that on that, whatever, for a person, whatever you did, that's gonna be, that's a worthless work, that remains, that happened in your life, maybe a lot of times, who knows, whatever.

But that's what the Lord wants to deal with. He wants to take care of that worthless work. It's a product. The sin that created that worthless work has been paid for. And that's kind of a key point. Okay, part two of this. God is now clearing the decks. He's clearing the foundation of all the worthless works that are not of Christ. The purpose of the bema is reward. It's not a tribunal, it's reward. Several verses talk about that. And here's a couple, this is the cool part.

Remember about the standing by? We are standing by at the bema, the reward seat, on the side of the fire that reveals the works that abide, that made it through the fire. We can't see the worthless works that are consumed by the fire. Okay, you may take exception with that. So here's a picture that's gonna show that. Okay, so here's my tray with my worthless works and my good works.

Here's a fire, and it says a fire will test the quality of each man's work, okay? Praise the Lord. What makes it through the fire, right? Right on. Only the gold, silver, and precious stone. Christ works through me. So what's the picture of Christ in ourselves? Here we go. And what do we say? We say, we'll give praise and glory to Christ.

I'm gonna show you about those words in a second, but that's the picture. And this picture I found on the internet, actually, I found it, it's a resurrection picture, so it shows it was at the tomb someplace, and I borrowed it and cut and pasted it in there, but see, it shows the marks of the crucifixion, isn't that cool? Anyway, so there we are, and it could be a lady, too, so whatever. So that's, I think it's a much better picture, not a perfect picture. Scripture, don't trust my pictures, trust Scripture. With any picture, trust scripture.

Okay, so a couple additional points. So what's the nature of rewards? You know, many times we talk about, we'll go to crowns, and that can be a profitable study, but I'm gonna just go a different direction. I got influenced by Hal here again. I wanna go the direction of just looking at good works and Christ being glorified. Our rewards will be in accordance with God's eternal purpose and His predetermined plan for our good works.

The main points here, you became a new creation in Christ, and that's, Mike, we're going to cover that verse here. Christ shared his glory with you, positionally, and you see that in John 17, just a beautiful, beautiful verse there. It says, the glory which you have given me, the father to the son, I have given them, believers, that they may be one just as we are one. So we have, positionally, we have his very glory, his very essence, which is just incredible. God is now revealing, this is a Christian life, so the first part of this is gonna be Christian life.

What we're gonna see is the bottom part, God doesn't change His game plan. Our whole life was glorifying Him, so what do you think happens into the rewards? We continue to glorify Him, it doesn't stop, but we do a lot better job, I think. We don't have the sin nature, right? Okay? As you behold His glory by faith, the Holy Spirit forms Christ in you, conditionally and you grow in His grace.

That's basically 1 Corinthians 3.18.

We are God's vessels containing the glory of Christ. We just studied that a couple months back about that we have this treasure and earthen vessels. We have this glory of Christ within us. So now the Bema comes along. The Bema is about the capacity to glorify our Lord Jesus. And this is a great paragraph by Pentecost again. The greater the reward, the greater the bestowed capacity to bring glory to God.

It will be Christ and not the believer that is glorified by the reward. Just think about that. The human picture is at the Olympics, who's being glorified? The contestant, right? Well, not the Bema. Christ is being glorified because we did his good works and they were accomplished. And he gets the glory. How could that ever happen? In human terms, you can never do that, but God can do that. Okay, last one before the review. All right, so another verse here that we read.

For it is written, as I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, every tongue shall give praise. Or King James says, confess to God. So one of the contentions here is, what's the best? Is confess better or praise better? Well, the original word is ex-amilegeo. It's to say the same, out from.

So it's used in two ways. Like in 1 John 1, 9, it says, if we confess our sins, so it's used to confession. So with the confession picture, this verse seems a little kind of ominous, right? And this verse often used is for unbelievers, and I actually hadn't seen it used this way before. I believe it can be used for believers, because we're gonna confess, or we're gonna give praise.

So I believe it's used, praise is a better word here, and the New American Standard shows us that. Praise is a better translation. And it's a quote from Isaiah 45, where praise is a context. So confess or praise, the idea is to say the same thing from one's heart, of glorifying the Lord at the bema, the greater the reward, the greater the capacity to praise and glorify him. That's what it's all about. That's what's so marvelous about the Bema. He's getting the glory.

And the second verse is a little problematic sometimes. So then each one of us will give an account of him to God. Will give an account of himself to God. I didn't say it right. Okay. So this is the word logos. Word used of expressing the knowledge of someone. our account at the Bema, it will be an expression of knowing Him. We will express out from our hearts the magnificence of His essence. We'll praise Him for what He's done in our lives, and He will show us that.

So that's a pretty wonderful picture. Okay, so I varied a little bit from my usual practice. I don't have my usual slide, because I wanted to present this one last slide. This is the summation of the reward seat. So this is, you know, when it happened, the time, the whole works. So let's look at this as a final thought. So the timing of the bema is between the rapture and the second advent, and most think it's right after the rapture.

It's at home in heaven. We've left the earth, we're at home in heaven. Maybe we're in the air, maybe we're, I'm not sure how far you go in the air before you get to heaven. It's only church-aged believers, those in Christ. Only the church-aged believers are called in Christ in scripture. We're in Christ.

The basis, the purpose of the Bema is rewards. Actually, it's, Bema's only, yeah, okay. It's a reward seat, not a tribunal. Our reward will be the capacity to glorify our Father and the Lord Jesus. The greater the reward, the greater one manifests the glory of Christ in his life. So he looks back and says, you'll get rewarded for glorifying Christ more in your life. The lesser the rewards, the lesser one will glorify Christ in his life.

You know, as I went through this and you think about, so let's say I'm a lesser rewarder. Am I gonna feel, well, you know, Mike got more than me. He got, you know, he can glorify the Lord more. Am I gonna be jealous of that? Or just, our sin nature is gone, so I won't have that feeling. So anyway, I mean, now I might have that feeling, but. But I won't have it then, okay. So the conditions will be in our glorified spiritual bodies.

No books are mentioned, what's interesting for the believer, he doesn't need to open any books. We're in his son, we're in Christ. Why does he need to open any books? It's wonderful, there's no books mentioned. Separation is made between, so the separation is works that glorify him and ones that didn't glorify him, and it's by fire. The judges are the Lord Jesus. And then lastly, the results, again, are praise and a count at the biman will be to glorify and magnify the essence of the Father and the Lord Jesus. Just incredible stuff.

So whenever somebody says, reward seat, I was trying to say the judgment seat, and I got all flipped around, so I apologize. Okay, let's pray. We thank you, Father. Thank you so much for just this marvelous truth of your bima, as you call it in the Greek language, the bima, the reward seat of our Savior. And we thank you that from what we've studied today in the verses, that it's a place that we look forward to, that we will Our sin nature will be gone, and You'll reward us for the things that we did as we trusted You in our Christian life, Father. We thank You for that. We ask it in His name.