Things Hereafter (in Heaven)

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The Father’s House
•  The Lord will lead His saints whom He has “caught up” at the Rapture into “the Father’s house” in heaven (John 14:2-3; Heb. 2:13).
•  After the Lord takes His people home to “the Father’s house” on high, He will sit them down at His table and serve them heavenly happiness and unspeakable joy (Luke 12:37).
The Judgment Seat of Christ
•  The judgment seat of Christ will be set in heaven upon which the Lord Jesus will sit as a Judge. He will review each believer’s life. The order of the session will be:
•  Review.
•  Reward.
•  Rejoice.
•  There are two kinds of judges in society. Christ will execute judgment after the order of both. One is a judge in a penal character vested with authority to pass a sentence of judgment on a guilty offender—i.e. a judge in the judicial courts of the land. The believer will never be found before Christ when He judges in this character. It is not the believer’s sins that are in question at the judgment seat; that has been settled once and for all through their faith in His finished work on the cross. Knowing this gives the believer great boldness as he anticipates the Day of Judgment (1 John 4:17).
•  He can rest with perfect confidence in the sure Word of God that states that he “shall not come into condemnation” (John 5:24; Rom. 8:1). The other kind of a judge is that of an umpire, having knowledge sufficient to decide on the merits of an object in question—i.e. a judge at an art show. The judge, in this case, is there to appraise and assess the quality and workmanship of the article on display. It is in this second character that Christ is seen as a Judge with believers. God keeps books (records); when a person gets saved He closes the debt side of the ledger and opens the credit side. From that moment forward everything in the life of the believer that is done for Christ will be recorded for future reward. Each believer will be rewarded for faithfulness in their life (1 Cor. 4:5). The judgment seat of Christ is when the rewards will be given out.
•  The believer’s deeds (2 Cor. 5:10), works of service for the Lord (1 Cor. 3:9-15), motives (1 Cor. 4:4-5, Rom. 2:15-16), words (Matt. 12:36-37), and personal exercises (Rom. 14:1-12), will all pass into review before the holy eye of the Lord Jesus Christ. Everything in their life will be manifested in that day, both before and after conversion, because the Scripture says, “According to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.” (2 Cor. 5:10)1
When I stand before the throne,
Clad in beauty, not my own,
Then Lord shall I fully know,
Not til then how much I owe.
•  All that will come out at the judgment seat of Christ will apparently be a matter between each saint and God. It will not be a public exposure before others.2
•  Those things which the saints have done in their lives that are not according to the Lord’s approval will be burnt up and they will receive no reward for them (1 Cor. 3:14-15).
When I stand at the judgment seat of Christ,
And He shows His plan for me,
The plan of my life as it might have been
Had He had His way, and I see
How I blocked Him here,
And checked Him there,
And I would not yield my will,
Will there be grief in my Saviour’s eyes,
Grief though He loves me still?
He would have me rich, but I stand there poor,
Robbed of all but His grace;
While my memory runs like a hunted thing,
Down the paths I cannot retrace.
Lord, of the years that are left to me,
I give them to Thy hand;
Take me, break me, and mould me,
To the pattern Thou hast planned.
•  There are three reasons for the judgment seat. Firstly, it is to magnify the grace of God in meeting the believer’s need. When the Lord reviews their lives and brings to light their sins and failures, He will show them just how great a debt they really had before God.
•  In that day, the saints will learn the true badness of their flesh, and they will also learn how great His grace has been in rising over it all. “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound” (Rom. 5:20). Secondly, it is to reveal the perfect wisdom of God in all the ways that He has taken with His people. The Lord will, so to speak, put His arm around the believer and go through his or her life step by step. He will reveal the story of His patient grace, perfect wisdom, and boundless love that has followed them through their whole lives. All of the hard questions that they have had as to why certain things happened to them will be answered then. He will show them the reason why those troublesome and difficult things they passed through were necessary. In the end, they will say, “His way is perfect” (Psa. 18:30). Thirdly, it is to determine the rewards of the saints and the place that they will consequently have in the kingdom (Luke 19:16-19).
•  The results of the judgment seat of Christ will stimulate the eternal praise of the saints of God (Rev. 19:7).
•  Every believer will receive a reward from the Lord. “Then shall every man have praise of God.” (1 Cor. 4:5; Matt. 25:21-23) There are, perhaps, 7 crowns that will be given as rewards. The “incorruptible crown” (1 Cor. 9:25), the “crown of rejoicing” (1 Thess. 2:19), the “crown of righteousness” (2 Tim. 4:8), the “crown of life” (Jam. 1:12; Rev. 2:10), the “crown of glory” (1 Peter 5:4), the crown of “gold”(Rev. 4:4) and the “overcomer’s” crown (Rev. 3:11).
Worship Around the Throne of God
•  All of the heavenly saints (referred to under the figure of the 24 elders in the book of Revelation) will take their place on thrones around the Lord in heaven. As they look upon Him in all of His creatorial and redemptive glory, they will cast their crowns, and themselves, at His feet in adoration and worship (Rev. 4-5).
The Marriage of the Lamb
•  The marriage of the Lamb (Christ) will take place in heaven.3 The bride is the Church. The guests at the marriage supper will be the friends of the Bridegroom—the Old Testament saints, etc. (John 3:29; Rev. 19:6-10).
 
1. Some may wonder why it would be necessary to manifest things believers have done before they were saved, but Scripture clearly states that it will be the “deeds done in the body,” not the deeds done after conversion (2 Cor. 5:10). We all were “in the body” before we were converted! The saints will be glorified at this time and will not be defiled when such things are revealed. One of the reasons why the Lord will show us all of our lives, both before and after conversion, is to show us just how great a debt we really owed. It will magnify His grace that has met us in all our need. Also, in order for Him to show us why He allowed those trying and difficult things in our lives, it will be necessary to go back into our unconverted days to give us a picture of what we really were and what it was that He was working out of us. Some of the discipline in our lives as Christians is a result of God’s ways of working out of us those characteristics that have been there since our unconverted days. Interspersed through the record of the believer’s failures (and surely we have all failed), He will find cause to reward His people for the things that they have done for His name’s sake. To think that He will find cause to reward His saints will cause their hearts to be overcome with a sense of His love and grace in a way that could not be reached if all was not revealed. It will result in the highest, loudest notes of praise “to Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood” (Rev. 1:5-6).
2. “Exposition of Revelation,” W. Scott, p. 381, “Sun of Righteousness,” E. Dennett, p. 37, “Scripture Truth,” vol. 1, p. 318, “Bible Treasury,” vol. 1, p. 243, J. N. Darby, “Collected Writings,” vol. 13, p. 359, F. B. Hole, “Luke,” p. 162.
3. It is difficult to place when this will exactly happen. It will take place sometime after the judgment seat of Christ and sometime before the Appearing of Christ at the end of the 7-year Tribulation period. It could possibly be near the end of the Tribulation.