Angelic Conflict part 332: Future work of Christ [Bema seat] – 2Co 5:10; Gal 5:1-9; Mat 6:19-24; Joh 15:1-17.

Title: Angelic Conflict part 332: Future work of Christ [Bema seat] - 2CO 5:10; GAL 5:1-9; MAT 6:19-24; JOH 15:1-17.

 

3. The judgment of all classes of moral creatures (angels and men).

 

These judg­ments can be itemized as referring:

 

a. The church:

 

2CO 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat [bema - raised platform] of Christ, that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good [agathos- only God is good] or bad [kakos - evil or worthless].

 

In the scripture we are to perform good, cling to it, follow after it, imitate it, and overcome evil with it.

 

The Bible makes clear that only God is good and so humans are unable to perform it without God performing it through them, so then it is not an option for an unbeliever or a carnal believer.

 

Divine good can only be performed as a result of spiritual growth and it is never the means.

 

Hence there is the action or work and also the intent or motivation.

 

Generally it is sinful motivation or intent that produces dead works, and dead works likely produce more sins, hence dead works and sin can feed off each other.

 

Sinful motivation results from a priority of self and earthly treasures. The Pharisees had this motivation while they were overtly performing the Mosaic Law and so they thought they were good. This is the good of the flesh. The good of the flesh is ritualistic and selfishly motivated.

 

The Christian who is perfected forever, being in Christ, has, nevertheless, a life of imperfection to live so long as he is in this world. The new problem which he confronts as a believer is not one of how he should live that he might be accepted and perfected before God, but rather of how he, an accepted and perfected person, should live after these stupendous realities are accomplished by the grace and power of God.

 

True motivation for divine good production begins with a full understanding and faith in positional truth.

 

Until this vital distinction is comprehended and received, there will be no progress made in the extensive field of truth which directs the Christian’s life and service. Every believer is in full time Christian service whether they know it or not.

 

Until positional truth is recognized and received to the extent that the saved one acknowledges that he is saved and perfected in the sight of God on no other ground than that, on his part, he has believed on Christ to the saving of his soul, and, on God’s part, he is justified, being both forgiven and constituted righteous through the immeasurable twofold substitution of Christ—bearing condemnation because of the unbeliever’s demerit and offering Himself as the source of merit— [our deliverance and our victory in Him] there can be only confusion and misunderstanding about the true motivating principle in the Christian’s daily life.

 

Until positional truth is recognized there can only be confusion and misunderstanding about the true motivating principle in the Christian's daily life. You must accept God's love!

 

A good thing must be done in a good way. If the motivation is bad then the work is bad no matter what it may look like overtly.

 

A carnal believer attempting to do good so that he might get saved or maintain his salvation or improve his standing with God is wrongly motivated no matter how sincere he is, and he cannot expect to be enabled in this false endeavour by the HS, and the temporary and relative nature of his dead works will lead to his own burn out or psychosis.

 

It could not be denied truthfully that a great mass of professing Christians have been deprived of the knowledge of positional truth and because of this have never conceived of any other idea of Christian conduct than that they are obligated to make themselves acceptable to God by their own works of righteousness. They miss the absolute awe and reverent fear of a God who did all the work to make them holy. God is infinite and awesome and what He has done for every believer is nothing short of that. Christians involved in legalism attempt to put God into ritual worship. Though Israel had ritual, the ritual was meaningless without the reality, and the reality of an infinite God who would bring a sacrifice for the sins of all men, all of us disgusting, should have ensued awe in Israel. God is much more than the emptiness of ritual. God indwells the believer in order to burn eternal life in him, even in the grain of sand of it that he can understand. Too much time is spent trying to put God on some chart or grid as if He is measurable. By reducing Christianity to formula, we deprive our hearts of wonder and awe. Hence, without faith, faith in the word and the work of the indwelling Spirit, and faith and trust in the future work of God and in His present work in me today, without faith it is impossible to please Him.

 

HEB 11:6

And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.

 

GAL 5:1 It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.

 

The teaching is that Christ died on the Cross to give us the advantage of having this liberty or freedom. This liberty consists of the Christian's freedom from the law. Under the law, the person has no more liberty than a child in its minority under a guardian. The child has no freedom of action nor right of self-determination. He must move within a set of rules prescribed by his guardian. He is not old enough to act alone. He must always act under the restrictions of his guardian. So is it with the person under the law. Here were these Galatian Christians, free from the law, having been placed in the family of God as adult sons, indwelt by the Holy Spirit who would enable them to act out in their experience that maturity of Christian life in which they were placed, now putting on the straight-jacket of the law, cramping their experience, stultifying their actions, depriving themselves of the power of the Holy Spirit. They were like adults putting themselves under rules made for children.