A vital aspect of future judgment is the assignment of rewards. Baptists generally subscribe to the biblical teaching that “the righteous in their resurrected and glorified bodies will receive their reward and dwell forever in heaven with the Lord” (Baptist Faith and Message).
While salvation, and the eternal life it bestows, is a gift of God’s saving grace in Christ, rewards are earned by faithfulness in living for and serving the Savior. Rewards can be lost but salvation itself is secure to believers in Jesus.
Acts of service, demonstrations of genuine love, manifestations of Christlike qualities and other commendable and commanded expectations of God’s children do not form the basis for salvation and entrance into heaven. These things are, however, part of the outward evidence of the genuineness of a person’s faith and the transforming work of the Holy Spirit.
A commonly cited passage that speaks of the reward aspect of final judgment is 2 Corinthians 5:10. Speaking as one Christian to a congregation of Christians in Corinth, the apostle Paul wrote collectively of his readers and himself, saying: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.”
Distinction between good and bad
The distinction between the “good and bad” as it relates to Christians receiving rewards is clarified in 1 Corinthians 3:13–15, which speaks specifically about a loss of rewards: “Each one’s work will become clear; for the day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. If anyone’s work … endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.”
The basis for the testing of a Christian’s works is not the quantity of the works but the quality. Rewards depend on faithfulness in light of ability and opportunity, as well as the enduring quality of those works.
A practical consideration about final judgment for believers is that we are not to engage in judging one another. After citing Isaiah 45:23 (“As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall confess to God.”), Romans 14:12–13a concludes, “So then each of us shall give account of himself to God. Therefore let us not judge one another anymore.”
Being faithful
Our major concern is not to try to identify the nature of future rewards themselves. While our curiosity might like to know or even speculate what might be involved, the fact is that passages about eternal rewards for faithful Christian living and serving do not identify those rewards.
The serious truth for all Christians is that present actions have eternal consequences. We are living unto eternity each day of our Christian lives. In light of one day facing the Lord, the righteous Judge, we do well to do as 2 Corinthians 5:9 admonishes: “We make it our aim … to be well pleasing to Him.”
Jesus used the parable of the talents to underscore the value of being faithful to our heavenly Master according to our varied abilities and opportunities. He said that a faithful believer will hear these special words: “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matt. 25:21, 23).
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