"For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things
done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad" (2 Cor. 5:10).

This is clearly applicable to either a believer or an unbeliever.* An unbeliever has nothing but
what is bad, nothing but unmingled evil to his record. He who despises the name and precious
blood of Christ is judged and cast into the lake of fire.

*Ed. Note:For the unbeliever, this will be the judgment of the great white throne (Rev. 20:11),
which will occur a thousand years after the manifestation of believers at the judgment seat of
Christ.

In the believer, on the other hand, there is both good and bad. The Lord will fully own and reward
whatever has been the fruit of the Holy Spirit working in the believer’s soul and in his ways. But
as to the bad, it will be the believer’s own deep and thankful satisfaction, not merely to know it
blotted out as a matter of guilt against his soul, but to find himself brought into perfect communion
with the Lord about it. He will thoroughly see and judge according to God concerning it all. If
there has been a single thing offensive to God which self-love or haste or will has blinded him to
in this life, he will then know it even as he is known. So far from causing a single waver in his
affections, so far from raising any doubt or question of God’s perfect grace to his soul, it would
be positive loss if the believer were not thus brought into oneness with

God’s mind and judgment about all that he has done here. Even in this life we know something
analogous. No doubt all of us who have passed any time in the Lord’s paths have experienced
what it is to be laid aside for a season_to have the Lord speaking to us and calling up before our
souls that which we had too lightly thought of, or wholly passed by. Surely there is a great deal
of unjudged and unsuspected fleshliness and worldliness in the ways and testimony of those that
love the Lord. Now, would it be for the Lord’s glory if these things were not noticed by Him at
any time? Even in this life He often sends circumstances of sorrow, want, sickness, or
disappointment in order to raise needed questions concerning the health of the soul.

The judgment seat of Christ is a part of God’s necessary ways with His children. Its principle is
true even now, for we are expressly told by the apostle Peter that the Father judges now. Is this
opposed to His love? Surely not! Neither will it be so then. Perfect love will have brought us into
that plate, for in what condition shall we stand there? Before we are manifested at the judgment
seat of Christ, He will have come for us and presented us in His Father’s house in pure, simple,
absolute grace. We shall appear there already glorified, and as our bodies will be like that of
Christ, we shall be incapable of that natural shame which might be a pain to us here in this life.
We shall then feel entirely with Christ, and consequently be thoroughly above that which will be
disclosed there. All will justify His ways, though it be humbling to us; but we shall only rejoice
in Him and exalt Him.

The effect of our manifestation before the judgment seat of Christ will be to produce within us an
infinitely deep appreciation of the grace of God and a profound delight in all His ways and

ends_and above all in Himself. It will also give us a deep sense of what our lives on earth have
really been in His sight_the various ways and degrees in which self has wrought here below. God
forbid that any one should count such a manifestation a loss, grief, or danger to be dreaded. Even
here in this present life we know the measure of it to be gain; what will it be then and there?

(From Lectures on the Second Coming of the Lord.)