My Personal Christian Blog

Thanks for sliding into my blog site. This blog bog is a spin-off from my website at http://www.niteowldave.com/. Call me a Night Owl, as my full-time mission and hobby are jabbering from midnight until 8 a.m.ish with chatter bugs across the world. Hoot, hoot! Being a retired newspaper guy and a Curious George, I've written and assembled a whack of stuff that I hope you'll find interesting and thought-provoking. Check out the Stories bar on the right side, below, for all my articles - from my web site and this blog.




August 18, 2016

Will Christians be Rewarded for their Pre-salvation Good Works?


By Paul Tatham
tatham47@hotmail.com

Good works certainly don't count when it comes to receiving our free ticket into Heaven (Eph 2:8-9). Those works are considered "filthy rags," as far as having any efficacy to get us past the Pearly Gates.

But when we receive Christ--realizing that pre-salvation good works have nothing to do with our admission into Heaven--perhaps we will be rewarded at Heaven's Judgment Seat of Christ for any pre-salvation good works as well as post-salvation good works.

Perhaps our entire lifetime of good works will nonetheless be recognized and rewarded after we arrive there.

The accepted view is that at the Judgment Seat of Christ believers will be rewarded only for post-salvation good works (II Cor 5:10; I Cor 3:13-15). But these passages could possibly be construed to also include pre-salvation good works as well.

The Bible is clear that good works do come into play at the judgment of unbelievers--the Great White Throne Judgment. Their degree of punishment, in Hell, will be determined by their lifetime of deeds, both good and bad (Rev. 20:12).

Using the Great White Throne Judgement  (GWTJ) as a template, it might follow that at the JSOC a believer's pre-salvation good works will be rewarded along with his post-salvation good works. A Christian's entire life of good deeds--not just those committed after he is saved--may be taken into consideration.