Is There Bad News in the Good News?

Is There Bad News in the Good News?

2 Corinthians 5:6–11
6Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord— 7for we walk by faith, not by sight— 8we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. 9Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. 10For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. 11Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are made manifest to God; and I hope that we are made manifest also in your consciences. (NASB95)

Here we read several things that seem to conflict with one another. First, we read that when we are at home in our earthly bodies, we are absent from the Lord. This seems odd since we know that we are in Christ and that Christ is in us. We are not absent from Him and He promised never to leave us. Paul explains quickly by saying that we walk by faith and not by sight. In other words, we do not now see Jesus. In that sense we are apart from Him. Since we live by faith, we remain convinced that one day we will shed this mortal body, put on our eternal body, and see him as He is. (see 1 John 3:2) Since we know this is coming, we just go on wanting to please God because that is the true desire of our loving new hearts.

Then we come to verse ten, and we might be tempted to shudder a little. Paul says in no uncertain terms that we will all stand before the judgement seat of Christ and get what’s coming to us for the things we did. Our enemy loves to add his commentary on statements like this and make us fearful because he knows that we are well aware that our behavior is far from perfect. He never directs our thought so verses like John 3:18–21 18“He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19“This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. 20“For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21“But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.” (NASB95)

Here are a few things to notice. As a believer you are not condemned at the judgement. This translation says you are not judged. By this it means that you are not found guilty. Pay special attention to verse 19. Do you see that the judgement is that Jesus came and the world rejected Him, preferring to stay in bondage in the darkness. Now look at the beautiful truth in verse 21. “He who practices the truth”, Jesus is the Truth, “comes to the light”, Jesus is the light. You, my believing friend have practiced the truth by believing Jesus and coming to the Light. It goes on to tell us what the effect of believing Jesus and coming to Him is, do you see that? It is “so that [your] deeds (the things you have done) may be manifested (shown) as having been wrought (done) in God.”

That is some good news about your status at the judgement. Paul goes on in verse 11 of our text in 2 Corinthians 5 to say that because we know just how important it is for people to believe God, we try to persuade people of the good news that Jesus is the only way to righteousness. He calls it fear, and well he should. He is talking about the fact that we realize that God is sovereign, almighty, and holy and therefore, if people ignore Him they do so at great peril to themselves. Unbelief never ends well. Unless people change their minds about sin and God, it always ends in death.

He caps this off with the assurance that God knows us. He knows we are His beloved children. We are safe with Him.