ANNOUNCER: What will be judged at the Judgment Seat of Christ? Will confessed sin be brought up? How about unconfessed sin? Well, thanks for listening to Grace and Focus. We’re glad you’re with us. This is the Grace Evangelical Society’s podcast and broadcast ministry. We’re a focused, free-grace organization, and our website is faithalone.org. At that website, you’ll find our bookstore. Many great books including Bob Wilkin’s latest, The Gospel is Still Under Siege. And you can find out about our upcoming national annual conference May 18th through the 21st. All the details are there for you. Find them at faithalone.org/events. 

Now with today’s question and answer discussion, here are Bob Wilkin and Ken Yates. 

KEN: We have a great question that’s from Tom. Question about 1 John 1:9. Let me just read that verse to start off. In 1 John 1:9, John says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Tom’s main question here is, okay, if I’m a believer and I confess a sin, will that sin be brought up at the Judgment Seat of Christ? 

BOB: Okay, and what is the normal evangelical answer? If they believe in the Judgment Seat of Christ, which is a small number of people, but of those who believe in the Judgment Seat of Christ, what would be the answer to Tom’s question, “Will our sins be brought up at the Judgment?” If they’re confessed, would they be brought up? 

KEN: Well, they would say, well, certainly if you’ve confessed your sin, it is not going to be brought up. I would say you have a fairly large amount who would say, even unconfessed sins will not come up at the Judgment Seat of Christ, because they’ll say, Jesus paid for all of our sins, and therefore it’s not going to be an issue when we stand before Him. Our sins, so whether they’re confessed or not, but certainly with this question, the confessed 99, whatever percent would say, is not going to be brought up at the Judgment Seat. 

BOB: And I would agree with your point also about an unconfessed sin, because stop and think about it. 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, he’s faithful and just to forgive us our sins,” that is the ones we confess, and it cleanses us from all unrighteousness, the all unrighteousness is bigger than the sins we confess. 90% of our sins, we don’t confess. 

This is a true story. It’s kind of sad, but kind of funny. There was a pastor in the Iron Range of Minnesota, and a friend of mine who was a pastor and knew this guy, and he said, this pastor bought a watch that had a countdown timer, and so he would set it on 10 minutes. And at the end of 10 minutes, it would beep. And this person believed that he was out of fellowship with God if he committed a sin and failed to confess it. 

KEN: Within 10 minutes? 

BOB: Well, no, any time. So let’s say, for example, that he confessed his known sins just before he went to bed. So he wakes up in fellowship with God, but he gets up at 6 a.m. and at 6:15, he commits a sin, but he’s not aware of it. And it’s not until 10 a.m. that he commits a sin he’s aware of, and he confesses it. So in his view, between 6:15 and 10, he was out of fellowship with God, that whole time. So the pastor came up with this idea of, I don’t want to be out of fellowship with God for more than 10 minutes. And so what he would do is he set the timer, the timer went off at 10 minutes. And if he couldn’t, he would think, give a quick moral inventory. Did I sin in the last 10 minutes? And most of the time his answer would be, I can’t remember anything. So you know what he would do? What would you do if you thought, if I’ve committed an unknown sin in that 10 minutes, I’m out of fellowship with God, even though I don’t realize it, what would you do? 

KEN: Well, I think you could do a couple things. I’m trying to think of a legalistic crazy one here. One would be as, I’m going to commit a sin and then I’ll confess it. And then I’m going to be forgiven of the sins I’m unaware of. 

BOB: That wasn’t his idea. But there would be one idea. 

KEN: Yeah, because that’ll cover the one. 

BOB: The guy who wants to go back in prison, he’s like, I’ll commit a small crime. 

KEN: Or he’s just going to, I’m assuming just say, Lord, forgive me of any sin I’m not aware of.

BOB: Exactly right. So that’s called confession of the unknown sin. So he did this. And then he reset his timer. 

KEN: Boy, that would turn me into a neurotic mess. 

BOB: Guess what it did with him?

KEN: Turned him into a neurotic mess.

BOB: About 10 days later, he threw the watch away and quit doing that. Why? Because it drove him nuts. Literally drove him crazy. God never intended for us to set off a beeper to go every 10 minutes. In fact, we have the Holy Spirit living within us. And the Holy Spirit is capable of convicting us of sin. And when He does, we are to acknowledge it. We are to agree with God. That’s what to confess, homologeo means basically to agree with or to say the same thing. 

KEN: Say the same thing. 

BOB: And so we agree with God that what we said or did or our attitude was wrong, it was sin. But now coming back to Tom’s question about the Judgment Seat of Christ, in my view, I don’t believe that sins will be brought up at either the Judgment Seat of Christ or the Great White Throne Judgment. Because when you read about the Great White Throne Judgment in Revelation 20:11-15, we see that books are opened and each one was judged according to what was written in the books. They were judged according to their works. But the word sin is not mentioned in Revelation 20:11-15. 

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BOB: The same is true with the Judgment Seat of Christ. 2 Corinthians 5:9-10 says “We must all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ,” “We all” meaning believers, “that each one may be recompensed for the things done in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad.” 

KEN: And the recompense there is paid, you’re going to receive a wage. 

BOB: So we’re going to be judged for our bad deeds, but not for our sins. And by the way, a lot of people have this naive notion that at the Great White Throne Judgment, unbelievers will only have bad works. That’s nuts. Unbelievers are going to have lots of good works. And they’ll be judged according to their works. Good and bad. But that’s going to be to determine their degree of torment. Anyone not found in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire. They’re not cast into the lake of fire because of their deeds, whether good or bad, or whether their good deeds outweighed their bad deeds, that none of that’s the issue. The issue is they didn’t believe, so their name’s not in the book of life. And in terms of the Judgment Seat of Christ, we’re not even going to be judged to determine our eternal destiny. That’s not an issue. John 5:24 says the one who believes in Him will not come into judgment. So we won’t be judged to determine our eternal destiny. 

KEN: But has already passed from death into life. 

BOB: Right. But we will be judged, but not to determine our eternal destiny, determine our eternal reward. So I would argue that, yes, our bad deeds, will be brought up at the Judgment Seat of Christ, whether they’re confessed or not confessed. And that bothers some people, because they’re like, well, David confessed his sin with Bathsheba and Uriah, right? But yet it’s in the Bible forever. And don’t we preach about that? And don’t we teach about that? 

KEN: And so the question, this is something I don’t think you and I’ve ever talked about before too. And it comes up in our, in different Bible studies that I’m involved in. So what will that look like? We’re at the Judgment Seat of Christ and our bad works, 2 Corinthians 5:10, come into play. How would you word it? Would you say that, okay, well, then you’re not going to be rewarded for that. Okay, so you get no reward for that. You get rebuked for that. Or would we say that it is you know, if you had been in fellowship during that time, this is where you would have been, you know, this is the maturity that you would have gained. To go back to David, during that time when he was a hypocrite and he was a murderer and an adulterer, what would he accomplish for the Lord if he hadn’t done those things? That kind of thing. Would you word it like that? Or would you word it a different way? 

BOB: Okay. So I think what I would say is in terms of rebuke, we know from various texts like the a parable of the just and the unjust servant in Matthew 24:45-51 or 1 John 2:28, “My little children abide in Him so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink back in shame at His coming.” There’s not going to be a global rebuke except for believers who fail to persevere. If a believer fails to endure to the end of his or her Christian experience, then that person is going to be rebuked. 

But will there be rebuke, for example, if I murdered someone, you know, if I was doing something that was really like David with murder and adultery? I would think there will be some level of shame or rebuke for things we’ve done that are displeasing to the Lord, but that’s not going to be our overall experience because 1 John 2:28 says, we’ll have boldness or confidence at his coming. 

And so I would see it like if you think of the parable of the mean is the one guy goes from one to ten, he hears well done—ten cities. Second guy, one to five, he doesn’t hear well done, but here you also be over five cities. 

KEN: But he gets five cities. 

BOB: Yeah. So I like to think of it this way, that both those guys, they’re not going to be rebuked, but there’s going to be degrees of rulership. And the same thing is true with treasure we laid up, Matthew 6:19-21, depending on how much treasure we laid up, that’s how much treasure will be there. Now, if you ask—

KEN: So the bad works would be not rewardable. 

BOB: Right. And there’s probably going to be some negative consequences for that. It may take away some of our eternal reward. I don’t know. But the other issue is worthless works, 1 Corinthians 3:10-15. Like say, for example, I like doing race walking. I don’t think I’m, and you know, I got all these medals here. I like to put them around to mess with them. But the thing about it is I’m not getting eternal rewards for those. Am I? KEN: Well, I don’t know. You might. They look awful pretty over there. 

BOB: Yeah. He told me if I have five of these and five dollars, I can get a cup of coffee. Yeah. So in any regard, I think there’s a lot of things we do that are worthless, but I don’t want my bad deeds to come up with the Judgment Seat of Christ. But if they are, and that’s the way I read 1 Corinthians 5:10, then I accept that. And that certainly motivates me to be someone who is pleasing to the Lord day by day, right? But the key, the absolute key is I’ve got to persevere to the end, because if we endure, we’ll reign with Him, 2 Timothy 2:12. 

I’d encourage you to pray about this, study this issue. You may not agree with us. That’s okay. You’re an independent student of the Word of God. You’re an independent servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. So the key is, know for sure you have eternal life. And then within that, live each day in light of His soon return.

KEN: Because we will give an account. That’s the bottom of it. 

BOB: Whether you agree with all I’m saying, we will give an account, we’re accountable. 

KEN: Well, thanks Tom for the question. I think it was a great one. And until next time, keep grace in focus. 

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