10 - The “Day of Jesus Christ” [B]

The “Day of Jesus Christ”
Philippians 1:6
Philippians Lesson #010
June 30, 2022
Robert L. Dean
www.deanbibleministries.org

Opening Prayer

“Our Father, we are thankful for Your Word. We’re thankful for the fact that Your Word gives us reality. It teaches us how we are to think about ourselves, how we are to think about those around us, how we are to think about the universe that You have created and the world.

“And it teaches us that we live our lives with purpose. You have a purpose for each of us as a believer. You have gifted us by the work of Christ and God the Holy Spirit.

“Father, we are to grow to spiritual maturity that we may glorify You. And there will be accountability, not to determine whether we go to Heaven or the Lake of Fire, but to determine our future roles and responsibilities when our Lord Jesus Christ returns for the Kingdom.

“Father, we pray that we might be challenged and motivated by what we study this evening as we go through a study of what the ‘Day of Christ’ refers to.

“We pray this in Christ’s name, Amen.”

Slide 2

Let’s open your Bibles. We’ll begin just going over a couple of things here at Philippians 1:5–7, just to remind us of the context. We have these verses that we’ve studied using the phrase at the end of Philippians 1:6, “the Day of Jesus Christ.”

I briefly went over this some last time. There are those who come from a reformed perspective. That’s the same as covenant theology. A lot of people just refer to all of this as Calvinism. It’s not just Calvinism. It is related to those who do not take a literal view of prophecy.

They may be Lutheran. Lutherans do not hold a covenant theology. They have their own theology. They may be Roman Catholic. They may be of some other denomination—Methodist—but they don’t interpret prophecy literally.

So, for them, we live in a period of the spiritual Kingdom of Christ, and this will end when Christ returns to the earth, and there will be the Great White Throne Judgment, and then there is the Eternal State. That’s called amillennialism.

The prefix “a” means “not.” So, there is no literal thousand-year rule and reign of Jesus Christ. All of that could probably be defined as “replacement theology” because in their view of God’s plan and purposes in history, they believe that the church replaced Israel, and the church will become the heirs to all of the promises that God made to Abraham and Moses and David.

But to do that, you have to do away with a literal interpretation. So, when you consult certain commentaries written by people from that vantage point, they will think of the “Day of Christ” as a synonym for the “Day of the Lord.” They just confuse all these things together. But they refer to distinct things, as I pointed out last time.

Slide 3

In Philippians 1:5, Paul is talking about the partnership that he has with the Philippians: their partnership in the gospel. This doesn’t mean their partnership in salvation, but the fact that the Philippian believers, as I pointed out in the last several lessons, immediately began to financially support Paul once he left Philippi and headed to Thessaloniki.

When they headed down to Thessaloniki, Paul wrote to them later on and said they were the only church that financially supported him. And that participation financially is referred to in a number of passages in 2 Corinthians 8–9 and some other places, where it is used to refer to the financial support of somebody, that financial partnership with someone.

What I pointed out is that their partnership in the gospel meant that they were financially vested in Paul’s ministry. That is the context in Philippians 1:5.

In Philippians 1:6 when Paul then says, “being confident of this very thing,” what he’s about to say, what follows the “that”: “that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ …” the “good work” is often thought to be sanctification.

In lordship salvation, there’s a more extreme view that we would reject. In that view of Calvinism, God gives you the kind of faith that will save you. And once He gives you that faith, then He will regenerate you. Regeneration precedes faith because you’re dead.

We’re studying this also in Ephesians. You’re spiritually dead, so therefore, you can’t hear, understand, do anything, exercise positive volition, whatever, toward the gospel. God has to make you alive first, and then He gives you that saving faith.

Of course, we don’t agree with that. That’s taking the “good work” here in terms of either salvation or sanctification or blending them together.

Contextually, the “good work” is their fellowship, their partnership in the gospel, which changes your whole understanding of the framework for Philippians.

Slide 4

We talked about these three different stages of salvation, which are important as background to understand what we’re going to look at tonight.

Justification takes place at the Cross. When we learn the gospel that Jesus Christ died on the Cross for our sins, and we trust in Him, we’re given Christ’s righteousness. Because we possess Christ’s righteousness, God simultaneously declares us to be justified.

We are justified, therefore, on the basis of faith, by means of faith, and not because of any good that’s in us, but because we are, as it were, clothed with the righteousness of Christ. And it is because we have the right clothes on that we are declared just or justified.

The spiritual life, then, is distinct. What happens in lordship salvation is that phase two, the spiritual life, is integrally linked to phase one, so that if you are truly saved, you will necessarily grow in the spiritual life to some degree. And you will not fall away in terms of some level of permanent carnality.

We would say that sanctification, the spiritual life phase two, is distinct from justification. There’s a relationship, but justification does not automatically necessitate that you’re going to grow and mature as a believer.

Then at the end of our life, we’re absent from the body, face-to-face with the Lord, and we are glorified.

We’re saved from the penalty of sin when we trust Christ as Savior.

Then if we decide to go on and grow spiritually and to be disciples—and some may be disciples for a short time and fall away, some may be for a longer time and fall away—but in that process of spiritual growth, we’re being saved from the power of sin.

Then when we’re absent from the body, face-to-face with the Lord, we no longer have a sin nature, so we are saved from the presence of sin.

Slide 5

(This is) fundamental to understanding what Paul is talking about here. He’s talking to believers about their ongoing spiritual growth as part of this. But he’s talking about that particular specific aspect of their commitment to participate in the financial support of his ministry.

We’ve looked at the opening part of the Epistle. We’ve looked at the greeting in Philippians 1:1–2. Now we are in the section of the prayer for the Philippians in Philippians 1:3–8.

Next time, we’ll get to Philippians 1:9–11, which is a specific part of what Paul is praying for in relationship to the Philippians and their spiritual growth.

Then we get to the second part of the introduction, which is Paul’s joy over the expansion of the gospel. That’s part of their participation in the gospel, that it is expanding, and it continues to expand.

It began in Acts. In Acts 1:8, Jesus said that He wanted the disciples to stay, but that they were to go from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria, and then to the uttermost parts of the earth. Right now, and since the second century, we’ve been in that “uttermost parts of the earth” phase until the Lord returns.

That’s the basic outline that we’ve seen for Philippians.

Slide 6

And we’ve looked at fellowship.

Slide 7

This idea of the word KOINŌNIA is a participation together, a partnership. The idea is that you have people who are walking together toward a common goal. They have an intimate association with one another as they move towards a common objective.

Slide 8

Paul uses two different words, KOINŌNIA and SUGKOINONEA, to focus on the Philippians’ financial contribution.

Slide 9

We have verses and statements like in Philippians 1:7. He says, “… you all are partakers with me …” SYNKOINŌNOS—“you’re fellow partners with me.”

Then at the end, in the conclusion, he comes back and reminds them and states, “… no church shared …”—KOINŌNEŌ.

We don’t normally think of KOINŌNIA in this financial sense. But that’s how Paul is using it. “… no church shared with me concerning giving and receiving, but you only.”

Slide 10

So, when he says in Philippians 1:6 that he is “confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you—that’s this one aspect of their whole spiritual life, their participation in the gospel—[and He] will complete it until the day of Christ.”

If he were talking about their personal sanctification, he would say that He would complete it until the day you’re face-to-face with the Lord. But he doesn’t say that. He says, “until the day of Christ,” which is the Rapture, which is tantamount almost to the Judgment Seat of Christ. Because we’re raptured, and then go right into the Judgment Seat of Christ.

Slide 11

Paul uses these terms in Philippians 1:5 and Philippians 1:7, and they bracket Philippians 1:6, which is talking about focusing us on the Rapture.

Slide 13

This is a comment by Walter Hendrickson, who is a well-known amillennial commentator, who does tremendous research, has a lot of good things to say. But you’ve got to be careful with his theology.

This is just an example to show that he says, “this Day” is also called “the Day of Christ,” “the Day of our Lord Jesus.” Then he says it’s “the Day of the Lord,” “the day,” 1 Thessalonians 5:4 and 2 Thessalonians 1:10. So, anything that says “Day,” he says it’s all talking about the same thing without any clear discrimination.

Slide 14

This phrase “Day of Christ” or “Day of Christ Jesus”—some manuscripts have “Day of Jesus Christ”—is critical to understanding the motivation that Paul is giving these Philippians—to begin with the end in mind, to look down to what’s coming—and that’s the evaluation at the Judgment Seat of Christ.

One day, we’re going to get a report card, just like when you were in school, except this time, it’s coming from somebody Who knows all the facts, and He’s going to evaluate us on the basis of perfect omniscience. We see it mentioned again in Philippians 1:10, “that you may approve the things that are excellent …”

Now, that is an interesting word. I didn’t put it on this slide, but there’s a word group that shows up in all these passages. The noun is DOKIMOS, and it has to do with evaluation, testing something to see what it’s made of, evaluating something, or approving something, or qualifying something.

Then the verb is DOKIMAZŌ, which has the verbal idea of evaluating, testing, or qualifying somebody. Something not to the sense that you want to show where the failures are, but positively in the sense of approving, of showing what is done that is positive.

A lot of people think, “I’m not going to do too good at the Judgment Seat of Christ because all my wood, hay, and straw are going to be revealed.” No, it’s going to be burned up. What’s revealed is the gold, silver, and precious stones, as we’ll see in just a minute.

So, Philippians 1:10 mentions the “Day of Christ.”

Slide 15

Philippians 2:16, “holding fast the word of life …” That would be what we would call the true doctrine of perseverance: that we are to hold fast. We’re to continue to grow. We’re to continue to mature.

But that’s not the necessary sign of our true salvation. That’s how Calvinism would put it: that if you’re truly saved, you will persevere.

But if we’re truly saved, we may or may not persevere because there are going to be believers who are disobedient. They’re just happy knowing they’re going to end up in Heaven.

It used to drive me nuts. The first church I pastored was not a doctrinal church. Some people there had a background of good Bible teaching. Some didn’t.

I’d hear people say, “I don’t care about all that other stuff. As long as I’m in Heaven, I don’t care if I’m living in the gutter or living in a mansion, as long as I’m there.”

And I would say, “I don’t think that’s a biblical idea.” God wants us all to pursue excellence. And that’s what is stated here. We have to hold fast so that we can rejoice in the Day of Christ.

It’s not salvation. It’s rejoicing in the rewards at the Judgment Seat of Christ.

Slide 16

1 Corinthians 1:8 mentions it as well: “who will also confirm you …” We have that same word “confirm” that is here in Philippians, where Paul talks about “the defense and the confirmation of the gospel” in Philippians 1:7.

Slide 17

2 Corinthians 1:14: “(as also you have understood us in part), that we are your boast as you also are ours, in the day of the Lord Jesus.” So, the Judgment Seat of Christ is a time of rejoicing for most, but there will be a time of shame for some. That time of shame is not one that’s going to extend.

There’s a twisted view that came out some time in the 19^th century, that while the believers who are rewarded at the Judgment Seat of Christ will go into the Millennium, there’s sort of a Christian purgatory—Protestant purgatory—during the Millennial Kingdom.

That is how they interpret passages in the Gospels talking about those who are cast into outer darkness, where there’s weeping and gnashing of teeth. They don’t see that as the Lake of Fire. They see that as a temporary punishment for believers who are failures at the Judgment Seat of Christ.

That is based on a complete misinterpretation of all of the parables in Matthew. All the parables in Matthew are talking about the Kingdom, the Kingdom that is future. And it’s primarily focused on Jews, because that’s the focus of Matthew. It’s not about the church and Church Age believers.

But there are a lot of free grace people and theologians who take it that way. That’s one of the reasons—and some of you know this—that’s one of the reasons back about 15 years ago, there was a split in the free grace movement. Because you had a certain number of people that were really pushing that.

They had sort of always held that, but it wasn’t something they made an issue out of or talked out loud about, you might say. But it was a problem, and that’s why there were these divisions that occurred, and I think necessarily so.

Slide 18

Anyway, what does the Bible say about the Day of Christ?

Slide 19

Let’s just break it down and walk our way through this, because it’s very important to understand this whole issue of rewards.

A lot of people have trouble with this. Some people think, “That sounds like works to me and legalism.” So, let me talk about that just a minute.

It’s not legalism if that’s what the Bible teaches. And the problem may be with your understanding of what legalism is. Legalism is insisting on a superficiality, going through the motions externally as a basis for getting God’s grace, rather than God the Holy Spirit transforming us from the inside out.

This is one of the things that Jesus condemned the Pharisees for. They’re cleaning and washing the outside of the cup but leaving the inside of the cup dirty. They’re just concerned with externals, going through the motions, just saying the right things, giving lip service to a lot of things, but not being truly obedient to the Word from the heart.

So, we have to understand this, that the rewards is a motivation. Rewards are something you could compare to contracts that we have in sports, where you have a basic contract that if a player is going to play for a particular team, that he’s going to make a set amount of money no matter what. If he gets injured, if he doesn’t play, whatever, he’s going to make a certain amount of money.

But there’s an incentive clause that if he performs at a certain level—and that would be spelled out—then there are going to be bonuses. There are going to be other things that he’ll get paid, in forms of recognition that he’ll have, and he’ll make a lot more money. Those are the incentive clauses.

Rewards are incentive clauses. We’re saved by grace. It doesn’t matter what we do after we’re saved. You can sin to your heart’s desire, your wicked little evil heart’s desire, and you’re still going to end up in Heaven.

But that doesn’t mean that at the Judgment Seat of Christ, everything’s going to be the same with everybody else. Now, there are some people that think that: that everybody gets the same rewards.

I don’t believe that’s true. I think that is a communal idea that has a lot of an affinity with socialism and Marxism, that everybody ends up with the same thing, no matter how much work or effort you put into it. Everybody gets the same results.

That is not what the Scripture is teaching. There are clear distinctions, and I’m going to show that.

So, just recognizing right off the bat because of the quotes from Hendrickson, “the Day of the Lord” describes a day of judgment. The “Day of Christ” is when Christ comes for His own in the air at the Rapture. And it’s immediately followed by the Judgment Seat of Christ, when we are rewarded.

People say, “How long is that going to take?”

You’re in Heaven. You’re now in a timeless zone. It’s going to happen in the blink of an eye. And all of that will transpire. It’s going to go by.

I don’t believe that the Tribulation begins until once that happens. The reason I say that is, when you read Revelation 4–5, it talks about this group called the “24 elders.” Even among Dispensationalists, there are some different interpretations as to who those 24 elders are.

But at that point—this is before the Tribulation begins—the only group that is in Heaven are Church Age believers. Old Testament saints are not resurrected yet, so all you have that’s been raptured and present in Heaven are Church Age believers.

Furthermore, they are wearing crowns that are called STEPHANOS crowns. A STEPHANOS crown is different from a DIADEMOS crown. A diadem crown is a crown of rulership.

A STEPHANOS crown was the crown that you were given if you won a contest, if you won the Olympics, if you won the race. It was made out of laurel leaves or oak leaves or some other kind of vegetation. And it wouldn’t last very long, and that’s talked about in 1 Corinthians 9.

In Revelation 4–5, you have this group of 24 elders. They cast their STEPHANOS crowns—those are rewards—before the throne of God. Who has been rewarded at that time before the Tribulation begins?

What happens in Revelation 5 is, you have a scroll that has to be opened. The only One qualified to open the scroll is the Lord Jesus Christ. The scroll is sealed with seven seals. He’s going to begin to cut open those seals, and each one of those seals reveals judgments. Those are the judgments of the Tribulation period.

People say, “Why are there 24?” In the Old Testament, there were 24 orders of Levitical priests because not every priest would serve in the temple or tabernacle at the same time. There just wasn’t room for all of them. So, they split them up into 24 orders, and they would choose one from each order, and those 24 would then serve in the tabernacle or the temple.

Then when that period of time was over, they would choose one more from each of those 24 orders, and it would go through a cycle until everybody had an opportunity to serve one day or two days, or whatever it was, in the tabernacle or the temple.

Slide 20

Let’s look at the first passage here, 2 Corinthians 5:9–11, just to get the basis for the terminology.

Slide 21

Paul writes, “Therefore we make it our aim …” “We” as believers, but specifically he would probably be saying “we” in terms of himself and those who were with him, maybe Timothy or Titus, whoever was traveling with him.

“… we make it our aim, whether present—that is, in this life—or absent, to be well pleasing to Him.” I think that probably means whether present here with one another, or absent somewhere else, to be well pleasing to Him.

“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 …” He’s going to receive things according to what he does.

If this is talking about phase one salvation, that would be a works salvation. We know that salvation isn’t by works; it’s by grace through faith. So, we know that when it says that we receive these rewards “according to what he has done, whether good or bad,” that this is talking about something different from phase one salvation.

Then 2 Corinthians 5:11, he says, “Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are well known to God,—that is in His omniscience—and I also trust are well known in your consciences.”

Slide 22

That key verse is 2 Corinthians 5:10. The word that is translated “judgment seat” is the word BĒMA. That word shows up in a number of other languages. It actually is a Hebrew word that was brought over into Greek. It also shows up in some other languages as well. It’s referring to an elevated platform. That’s the word for Judgment Seat of Christ.

Slide 23

The BĒMA is a raised or elevated seat or platform, where the magistrate or tribunal would sit. In judicial settings, this is where the judge or the tribune would sit.

If this were a synagogue, I would not be at the pulpit. I would be at the BĒMA. This is a raised platform up here at the front of the church. In any synagogue, you go in, and the front where you have the elevated platform, they call that the BĒMA. This is a broad general word in the culture.

Slide 24

Remember, it’s to the Corinthians that Paul writes the main passage on the BĒMA seat, both in 1 Corinthians 3 and in 2 Corinthians 5. This is where the BĒMA seat was located. You can read it right down here in Greek and English, the BĒMA.

Over the back, you see the Acrocorinth. That’s the high point. This is where they had a temple to one of the pagan gods or goddesses.

Slide 25

This is the same location here. I’m teaching a group. We went to Greece in 2004, and I was teaching on 1 Corinthians 3.

Slide 26

There are two types of people that come out of the BĒMA judgment. 1 Corinthians 3:10 says, “According to the grace of God which was given to me …” You all ought to turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 3 because you ought to make a couple of notes here so that you can remember some of these points that I am making.

After he’s talked about the difference between carnal and spiritual believers, he says, “According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation …” We ought to say, “What does he mean by ‘foundation’?”

Then he says, “… and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it.” So, “let each one” is talking about each individual believer having a responsibility as to how he builds on the foundation that Paul has laid.

Then he explains what the foundation is in 1 Corinthians 3:11. He says, “For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”

Slide 27

The “I” there refers, of course, to himself as the Apostle Paul. The “foundation” is Jesus Christ, the Savior, Who is crucified for our sins. That’s how Paul looks at Christ.

In 1 Corinthians 2:2, he said, “For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” That’s the focal point of the gospel for him: Christ and Christ crucified. Explaining the crucifixion of Christ as the sacrifice for sin is, as far as Paul is concerned, the foundation and the focal point of the gospel.

Another reason I brought that up is because within the Grace Evangelical Society, within that free grace movement, somebody came up with the idea that you don’t really need to believe Christ died on the Cross, you just need to believe that Christ can save you. The passage for that was from early in the Gospel of John, in John 5.

This is one of the other reasons there was this split within the free grace movement about 15 years ago. There were many of us who said, “No, no, no. You can’t go to a pre-Cross passage to get the content of the gospel. You have to go to a passage after that.”

This is very clear, that Paul says, “I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” That was fundamental to the explanation of the gospel.

Slide 28

In 1 Corinthians 3:12 he says, “Now if anyone …” The “anyone” here refers back to the “let each one build on it.” He’s talking about any believer who is growing and building on the foundation of Jesus Christ.

“Now if anyone builds on this foundation …” Then he’s going to list six building materials. These six building materials are simply illustrative of what was commonly used in construction.

“Gold, silver, precious stones” would be used in, of course, the architecture of a temple. And “wood, hay, straw” would be used. The wood, hay, and straw, of course, would not have the same permanence as the gold, silver, and precious stones.

Then he says (1 Corinthians 3:13), “each one’s work will become clear.” When is it going to be clear?

“… for the Day …” He doesn’t say “the Day of Christ.” He doesn’t say “the Day of the Lord Jesus,” but that’s what he’s been talking about.

“… the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire.” What’s going to be revealed?

If you have something that’s composed of permanent objects like gold, silver, and precious stones …

And they don’t refer to specific kinds of divine good. I’ve heard some pastors say, “The gold represents this, and the silver represents this, and precious stones represent that.” Well, you don’t make analogies, walk on all fours, and make every detail mean something. There’s no exegetical basis. There’s nowhere where you can get that out of the Scripture. That’s just reading your own views into the text.

The “Day” is the “Day of Christ.” It’s revealed by fire. What’s going to burn up?

If you have all these building materials there, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, and straw, and you light fire to it, what’s going to burn up? The wood, hay, and straw. It has no permanent value.

The purpose is, what’s revealed is not the sin or the human good—that’s what the wood, hay, and straw represent, the good deeds or morality that you do apart from the Holy Spirit—it (what’s revealed) is the gold, silver, and precious stones.

The point of the Judgment Seat of Christ is not to expose our sin, our failures. Sin was paid for at the Cross. What is exposed are the things that we did when we were walking by the Spirit, the things that we did as we were growing in partnership with the Lord, walking by the Holy Spirit. That is what is revealed.

Then he says, “and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is.” That word for “test” is the word DOKIMAZŌ. Each one will be evaluated, qualified, examined. We’ll see that word several other times. The focus is to expose that which is of value, not to expose that which was a failure.

This “Day” refers back to what he has introduced earlier in 1 Corinthians 1:8, “who will also confirm you to the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” “Blameless” would be: you have good works, you have divine good; that is the gold, silver, precious stones that are exposed at the Judgment Seat of Christ.

Slide 29

Then he goes on to say (1 Corinthians 3:14), “If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures,—it survives the fire, it exposes gold, silver, and precious stones—he will receive a reward.” Of all the people that go through the Judgment Seat of Christ, there’s one group that’s going to be receiving rewards. A reward, many rewards, there’s one group that’s rewarded.

Then 1 Corinthians 3:15 says, “If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss …” The Arminian comes along and says, “He’s going to lose his salvation.” But pay attention to what it says.

“If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.”

Slide 30

That word, “he … will be saved,” is the future tense of the word SŌZŌ, which is the common word for “salvation, deliverance, preservation, keeping someone from harm.”

Slide 31

What you have, obviously, are these two classes. You have one group that has rewards. Second, you have another group that has no rewards. They kind of smell like they’ve been next door over at Aunt Pookies when they’ve been smoking brisket all day.

But all of them are saved eternally from the penalty, power, and presence of sin. But one group has rewards, and one group doesn’t. There’s a distinction that is made.

There are a lot of people who just have a problem with the fact that there’s going to be this level of distinction among those who are in the body of Christ, coming out of the Judgment Seat of Christ. But it’s very clear in 1 Corinthians 3 that there’s this distinction: those rewarded and those that are not rewarded. But all are saved.

Slide 32

The next passage I want to go to is always a fun one: Romans 8:17. “and if children— so we’re all children, where all have been born again into the royal family of God—if children, then heirs …” Then I would put an em dash there. “—heirs of God …” An em dash separates this as a distinct phrase, “—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ …”

This is the way it’s typically translated, where there’s no punctuation between “heirs of God” and “joint heirs with Christ,” so that they’re identical. They refer to the same thing. This is so common, this view: “heirs of God,” “joint heirs with Christ,” lumping them together as the same thing.

Then there’s a conditional clause, “heirs—two categories of heirs—… if indeed we suffer with Him.” So, that conditional clause modifies both kinds of heirs. So, it’s conditioned upon suffering with Jesus.

Sounds like works to me. If you haven’t suffered with Jesus, then you’re not an heir at all, which means you’re not saved. That’s a problem.

The problem is, you have to punctuate this so it will make sense in English, but there’s no punctuation in the Greek. In the great uncial manuscripts—the word “uncial” refers to uppercase letters—there are no spaces between words. There’s no punctuation.

If you reach the end of the line, there’s no hyphen separating syllables. You just reach the end of the line, you don’t have room for the next letter, so you go to the next line. That’s called an uncial.

No punctuation, no commas, no indication of periods or semicolons or anything else. You have to decide where you’re putting your punctuations. And where you punctuate, this changes your doctrine.

Slide 33

So, “Commas save lives.”

“Time to eat children!” You’ve got to make sure you punctuate that, or you’re a cannibal.

“Time to eat, children.”

Slide 34

This is a county school exam in England in 1937, and you had to properly punctuate it. “Charles the First walked and talked half an hour after his head was cut off.” How are you going to punctuate that?

Slide 35

“Charles the First walked and talked. Half an hour after, his head was cut off.” That makes a lot more sense, doesn’t it? It’s where you put the punctuation. It changes the whole meaning.

Slide 36

“Johnny said the teacher was stupid.” How are you going to punctuate that?

“Johnny, said the teacher, was stupid.” In other words, what she is saying is, “Johnny is stupid.”

Or you could punctuate it, “Johnny said, the teacher was stupid.”

Where you put the commas completely changes the meaning of the sentence.

When I punctuate this, I’m going to argue that there are two heirs here. There’s the “heir of God,” which is every believer. And the “joint-heir with Christ” is distinct.

Some people would say, “How can you justify that?” Well, guess what?

Slide 37

Here we have a picture on the right side of the original 1611 version of the King James Version, the Authorized Version. And then I have it blown up on the lower right.

What I would say is, the punctuation has to be something like this: “If children, then heirs, heirs of God,—that’s one category. The comma behind ‘God’ sets it apart—and joint heirs with Christ”—that’s your second category. They’re not the same thing.

That’s followed by a colon. Then you have a separate distinct sentence: “so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.” That’s what it says down here in a blow-up of the manuscript on the left side.

Notice, they have a comma after “heirs,” and a colon after “Christ,” and also a comma after “God.”

They have the commas just as I’ve placed them up here in the text above, indicating there are two distinct categories of heirship. An “heir of God” and a “joint-heir of Christ” are not the same thing.

“Joint-heir of Christ …” I would not close that with a colon. I would put no punctuation there. I would say, it’s “joint-heirs with Christ if we suffer with Him.” In other words, being a joint-heir with Christ is the result of your spiritual growth and spiritual advance, and that would be rewarded.

Everybody is an heir of God, but only believers who are advancing in spiritual maturity are the ones who are going to probably run the risk of being persecuted to some degree. Now, persecution doesn’t mean that you are being arrested and hauled off to jail. You can be persecuted just because you become a believer, and nobody else in your family is a believer, and they’re giving you a hard time because you’re a Christian.

It can be because you’re in school, and you become a Christian, you start telling your friends, and they reject you because you’re a Christian. That can happen if you’re five years old, six years old, 15 or 20, any time in life.

So, don’t think of suffering with Christ as something that is extreme. It’s just when you are in a situation where you may be ridiculed or just made fun of, or somebody may not want to be your friend anymore because you became a Christian. It doesn’t have to be something enormous, like being thrown in prison, thrown in jail, burned at the stake, or something like that.

Slide 38

Romans 8:17 in the New American Standard translates it as if “heir of God” and “fellow heirs with Christ” are the same thing.

Then in the World English Bible and the American Standard Version, notice, they set apart “heirs of God” and “joint-heirs with Christ,” just as the original King James Version of 1611 had it.

ESV and NIV set it apart with an em dash instead of a comma. But they have “heirs of God,” no comma, “and fellow heirs with Christ.” So, see, they’re reading their theology into it.

But everybody does it. If you’re going to put punctuation into the English translation, you have to make a decision. That’s part of your interpretation because it’s not in the original.

Slide 39

Instead of putting it like this …

Slide 40

I would put a comma after “God.” After “joint heirs with Christ,” maybe a comma, maybe not. The “if” clause, the conditional clause, is a condition for being an heir with Christ. Heirs of God are all believers. Joint heirs with Christ are those who grow spiritually, those who will suffer, because of their relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Slide 41

So, what are our conclusions on these two passages—2 Corinthians 5 and 1 Corinthians 3?

Every Christian builds on the foundation of their salvation: faith in Jesus Christ as the promised and prophesied Messiah, Who like the Passover Lamb died as a sacrifice, as a substitute for the sin of the world. That’s the foundation.

The second conclusion is that we (might) build with moral works which God has nothing to do with (wood, hay, and straw). The Pharisees did a lot of things in obedience to the Scripture, what they call mitzvah. That’s the Hebrew word for a “command.”

They’re performing all these good deeds, all these mitzvot, but it doesn’t count because they’re not saved. They’re not regenerated on the inside. It’s not God the Holy Spirit, or it’s not their walk with God in the Old Testament that’s producing that. So, you can build with morality, but that has nothing to do with spirituality.

In the Church Age, we build by walking by the Spirit, and those divinely enabled works have eternal value. They’re the gold, silver, and precious stones.

Third, in this life, you can’t determine which is which. You can’t look at your own life and determine which is which, much less look at anybody else’s life and determine which is which. That’s part of what Jesus is saying when He says, “Judge not, that you be not judged.” (Matthew 7:1) We can’t evaluate anybody else in terms of their salvation, or in terms of their spiritual life or spiritual growth. And we can’t evaluate our own.

I remember back in the 90s, we had a President who had a lot of moral failures. A lot of people were saying, “He can’t be a Christian because of this, that, and the other thing.” And yet, he sang in a choir at First Baptist Church in Little Rock, Arkansas. The pastor there said, “No, he is a believer. He is a very confused believer. But nevertheless, he is clearly a believer.” A lot of people don’t like to hear that.

Same thing with another President we had at the end of the 70s, Jimmy Carter. I’m convinced Jimmy Carter will be in Heaven. Jimmy Carter doesn’t understand much about the Scripture, but at some point, he did understand the gospel. I have no doubt about that.

And there are many others. Richard Nixon was another one, raised in a Quaker home. I think God had Nixon in as President. God multitasks for a lot of reasons. His mother told him, when he got elected President, that he will do something great for Israel.

When the Yom Kippur War broke out in the fall of 1973, and when Golda Meir appealed to Nixon, he remembered what his mother said. He really did. This didn’t come out at the time. It came out much later.

I got this information from some of my friends who served in Germany in the mid-70s not long after that. He basically took everything we had on the front lines to defend against the Soviets, and he sent it to Israel. He just stripped everything off the front lines in Europe and sent it to Israel, and that enabled Israel to win.

So, we’ve had a lot of Presidents who have a lot of questionable morality, but it’s pretty clear that at some point or another, they did trust Christ as their Savior. It’s only because you know that there is a clear testimony: “yes, I trusted Christ as my Savior.” Now, they may say, “I don’t believe that anymore,” but too late.

Four, our life’s work will be evaluated at the Judgment Seat of Christ.

Going back to that third point, talking about what you believe and what you don’t believe: Sergei has a great life example of “it doesn’t matter how much you believe something is true; it doesn’t make it true.”

Sergei was absolutely convinced. More than anybody I talked to in Ukraine, he was convinced that Putin would not attack [Ukraine]. That’s his great illustration. We were talking about that yesterday. Just because he believed it was so, didn’t make it so.

That’s great because there are so many people today that think, “If I just believe it hard enough, that makes it true.” That belief is not what makes something true. Being real or true is what makes something true.

Our life’s work will be evaluated at the Judgment Seat of Christ.

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Fifth point, the Judgment is not designated to expose sin, but to expose that which has eternal value, and we’re reward on the basis of that which survives the metaphorical fire. Sin was paid for at the Cross. The issue at the Judgment Seat of Christ is not sin. It’s the good works that have been performed in us through the Holy Spirit.

Sixth, the metaphor of burning destroys that which was temporal to reveal that which is eternal.

Seventh, rewards are on the basis of what is eternal.

Eighth, some have no valued works, yet they “will be saved, yet so as through fire.” Some have no valued works. They have no works with eternal value, so they will be saved, yet it’s through fire. But they’re saved. They’re going to spend eternity in Heaven, but they don’t have any rewards.

And last night’s conclusion: two types of Christians enter Heaven, those with rewards and those with no rewards. That’s very clear from 2 Corinthians 5, and especially 1 Corinthians 3.

Slide 43

Then we come to the sixth point, and I’ll close out with this. In Colossians 3:23–24, Paul says, “And whatever you do—so it’s focusing on behavior, it’s focusing on action, it’s focusing on performance—whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, because you know ...” The “because you know” there, or “knowing” as it’s translated in the English, is a participle, but it’s a causal participle.

Whatever you do, you do it heartily because you know something. In other words, you’re going to be obedient and do it well because you know something: because you know that from the Lord, you will receive a reward if you do it well.

This isn’t talking about salvation because salvation isn’t based on anything that we do. It’s not based on any works. This is talking about how we will receive the reward of the inheritance for serving Christ in this life.

Slide 44

What that tells us: salvation is free. That’s phase one. Salvation is free. It’s unearned, and it’s undeserved.

But rewards are based on doing something. Rewards are based on obedience. Rewards are based on walking by the Holy Spirit.

Slide 45

Next time, we’ll start with this question in point seven: “When is the Day of Christ?” We’ll come back to that next time.

Closing Prayer

“Father, we thank You for this opportunity to study these things, that we might be motivated to walk by the Holy Spirit, to serve You, to grow to spiritual maturity.

“That whatever we do will bring glory to You, because we know that one day there will be accountability at the Judgment Seat of Christ, not to show where we failed, but to reveal what You have done in our lives.

“We are rewarded for what You have done in our lives. And we thank You that it’s all based on grace.

“We pray this in Christ’s name, Amen.”