The “Terror” of the Judgment Seat of Christ

By Fred Pruitt

Another exchange:

Hiya Fred

Thanks for the articles you keep sending out, they refresh my heart.

You write about the body, but what about taking it a bit further to where Paul warns strongly about the terror of the Lord and each one receiving what is done in the body whether good or bad. How do you see singly with that!? Is it that those who have lived as if separate (flesh) will experience the wrath that they are in union with, ie Satan, forever? Each one shall receive…whether good or bad…I thought all that was cleansed and forgotten? I don’t understand that passage at all. Have you written anything on all that judgment stuff?

Have a good one,

………………………………………………………………………………

Dear _________,

Are you like me and get confused with all the different people’s “complete knowledge” of the sequence of “events” of the afterlife?

Honestly, it boils down to me to just one thing Paul said, “Absent from the body and present with the Lord” — that’s great!!! — (but then he throws in the thing about making certain we are accepted of Him, and then the bit about the judgment seat. hmmmm ….)

The “key” in all this that Paul has said, is “that we may be accepted of Him.” To me, once we know His acceptance by faith, the only thing I know after that is “I will never leave you nor forsake you,” and, “I go to prepare a place for you …. that I may receive you into Myself,” “no man may pluck you from my hand,” etc.

We must see that entering into the maturity of our calling means we are not concerned with our own salvation, righteousness, etc. We are no longer the point. We get “off” ourselves. “Lord, You’ve got me!” That is our faith. Then, knowing that (perfect Love casts out fear), as containers of Him, we see He is going to lead us into the Cross for others. That is the way He is, and the “way” He is in our lives when we realize His formation in us. We are not our own. We are bought with a price. He is now our Life, and everything else!

Therefore anything that happens, anything we get involved in, we no longer see as some “perfecting” of us, (though certainly our consciousness of the riches of Christ in us increases day by day), but that we are now useful as perfectly fitted instruments to express Him in the world. And in that we realize that we are “expendable,” in the sense that we see that we are the Lord’s and available for any intercessory purpose. We are the Lamb for others, simple as that.

And if we know that it is only by His Spirit that these things are enacted in us and through us, we stand on solid ground, on the Real Rock, imperceptible in any other way but by the faith of God which has welled up within us.

To me, in a sense, we are always before the judgment seat of Christ. I wrote recently about “judgment” and said we have our judgment in us. What we are, we are, and we reap whatever the fruit is of what we are. That is our “judgment.”

There is, after all, a cherub at the entrance to Paradise, with a big sword in his hand. The only One Who is “worthy” to enter Paradise, has gone ahead to prepare a place for us. He says there He will receive us into Himself. This One has taken the Cherub’s sword in Himself, and removed by His Cross the offense which we inherited through the first Adam.

By that Cross He has secured an eternal entrance to all who come in Him, and I am certain that even as we know His Cross in our daily living, and have been made partakers of the fellowship of His sufferings, then we are also participants in the power of His resurrection, which is ours as well. I am also certain that as we have willingly participated in the fellowship of His Sufferings, and have taken them into ourselves as His and ours, we do feel them. As all things invisible that shall someday be visible, we also feel the pain of the cut of the Cherub’s sword, because as we know the Redeemer has secured Himself in us, it is also an honor that we might also know the pain of the cut received in Him. And as He “endured the cross, despising the shame, for the joy set before Him,” so do we.

His joy, and ours in Him, is in the “bringing many sons unto glory.” That’s it. Whatever the cost. That sounds “bold,” but it is said in weakness and received in weakness, even as Jesus bore the Cross in weakness, and in that weakness we see the infinite power of God.

Now, all that, “what’s going to happen after death,” that so many people seem to have expert opinions about, as well as well formulated “theologies” all packed up nice and scriptural, is mostly just a bunch of hooie to me. Not our worry. It’s like people speculating how wonderful it’s going be when they win the Lottery. We are not “reward” minded, but Christ-minded.

I’m with Paul, “For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified,” and also, “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.” (Gal 6:14,15)

Now this is true of all who are in Christ.

Much love,

fred