H.H. — We know of no definite passage of Scripture to guide us in replying to your inquiry as to whether believers will pass before the judgment seat of Christ prior to entrance into the Father’s house, or whether that will be subsequent to our entrance there. For this reason we can only state our thought as to this in the way of suggestion.
There are two things that must ever be distinguished, namely, grace and responsibility. The Father’s house is on the former line, and the judgment seat upon the latter. Infinite love has chosen us as children, we have been given by the Father to the Son, our Lord Jesus (John 17 to); and the time is speedily coming when He will receive us to Himself in His Father’s house (John 14:1-3). This is all grace, and all that is needed for that place is the “body of glory” (Phil. 3:21). This wondrous change will take place at the coming of the Lord (1 Thess. 4.) in the twinkling of an eye (1 Cor. 15:52), and we believe that we shall at once enter the Father’s house.
The judgment seat (2 Cor. 5:20) has to say to the things done in the body, and of course is on the line of our responsibility. There we shall behold everything in the light of the Lord. We shall there receive His judgment (not in the sense of condemnation) as to our whole course on earth; and being no longer cramped and limited by our mortal flesh, but being clothed upon with our house which is from heaven (2 Cor. 5:1, 2), we shall have the capacity without hindrance of fully appreciating the matchless grace of God, and also the degradation and hatefulness of that from which that grace has saved us.
The hour in which all will thus be manifested is evidently connected in Scripture with “the day” of the Lord, and rewards are linked with it (1 Cor. 3:13-15). From Matthew 25:14-30, we gather that these rewards determine the respective places of saints individually in their sharing in the glorious millennial reign of Christ over the earth. We incline to the conclusion, therefore, that the judgment seat of Christ, as it applies to believers in this dispensation, will immediately precede our return to earth with the Lord to reign with Him over it.
But the judgment seat in no wise determines our place in the Father’s house: infinite love has already done this, and we have nothing to fear, for we shall there be in perfect and eternal accord with the One who for the fullness of our blessing and joy will rightly appraise for us all that has passed in our life below, and fuller and deeper will be the praise that we shall then render to Him.