After This, the Judgement (Part 2)

The Case Against a Two Judgments (Part 1)

How many judgments are there?

This question may seem straightforward, but for many within American evangelicalism, the answer is not as simple as it sounds.

In fact, the instinctive answer for many is that there are two judgments, or at least two.

Others have pushed back on this. Louis Berkhof, for example, acknowledges that Scripture uses different language when speaking about judgment, sometimes referring to what is commonly called the great white throne and at other times to the judgment seat of Christ. Yet he argues that when the full scope of biblical teaching is considered, particularly outside of the writings of Paul, the consistent witness of Scripture points to a single, unified judgment at the end of time.¹

As has already been mentioned, part of the confusion surrounding the judgment comes from the fact that there is no single, clear text that lays out the idea for two judgments.

For this reason, those who argue in favor of multiple judgments typically build their case by gathering a few key proof texts and reading them as if they demand a separate category.

Chief among these are Romans 14:10–12 and 2 Corinthians 5:10, both of which use the language of a bēma seat, and are therefore taken to describe a distinct judgment for believers.

I know your mind went to 1 Corinthians 3, and don’t worry, we will get to that next time.

The Context of Romans 14

In Romans 14, Paul is not outlining the future judgment events; he is addressing intra-church conflict over matters of conscience, specifically the judging and despising occurring between the “strong” and the “weak.”

When Paul writes, “we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ,” he is not introducing a separate tribunal for believers as distinct from unbelievers, but grounding his prohibition against mutual judgment in the universal reality of divine judgment.

This is confirmed by his appeal to Isaiah 45:23, where the Lord declares that every knee shall bow and every tongue confess. That prophetic text is not concerned with a subset of redeemed individuals receiving differentiated rewards, but with the comprehensive submission of all creation before the sovereign God.

The logic is not: “Christians should not judge one another because they will later be evaluated in a separate, believer-specific judgment.”

Rather, the logic is: “Christians should not judge one another because judgment belongs to God alone, and all will stand before Him.” The universality of the scene is precisely what gives it its force.

To read Romans 14 as evidence of a distinct “bema seat” for believers is therefore to reverse Paul’s argument.

The Context of 2 Corinthians 5

A similar pattern emerges in 2 Corinthians 5:10, which is often treated as the definitive proof of a believer-only judgment.

Paul writes that “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.”

Paul speaks of the necessity of judgment (“we must”), the universality of judgment (“all”), the manifestation of judgment (“appear”), and the evaluation of judgment (“good or bad”).

Yet none of these elements requires the conclusion that this is a separate judgment event distinct from the final judgment described elsewhere in Scripture.

In the context of this passage, Paul is actually speaking on mortality, resurrection, and the believer’s future embodiment. He contrasts the present “earthly house” with the future dwelling from God, expresses his longing to be clothed with immortality, and affirms that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.

The reference to the judgment seat follows directly from this framework.

Moreover, the language of “receiving according to what has been done” is not unique to this passage. Similar statements can be found throughout Scripture in contexts that clearly refer to the final judgment of all humanity.

The Misuse of the Term Bēma

At this point, the argument typically turns to the word Bēma, and the assertion that the term bēma refers to an awards platform in Greco-Roman athletic contexts. And therefore it must denote a setting of reward rather than judgment.

This move, however, is flawed.

While it is true that bēma could refer to a raised platform from which officials presided over games, it is equally, and more frequently, used in the New Testament to speak of a place of judgment.

Jesus stands before Pilate’s bēma (John 19:13).

Paul is brought before Gallio’s bēma (Acts 18:12).

Unless one is attempting to argue that Jesus and Paul were waiting to be rewarded for their Olympic performance, we have a problem.

Hopefully, you are seeing the problem. The lexical range of a word does not determine its meaning; context does.

Thus, to insist that bēma must refer to an awards ceremony where believers are judged for their works is to ignore the dominant New Testament use of the word.

Simply put, to claim that bēma must mean a separate judgment is to read into the text something that may not actually be there.

What is striking, when these texts are read carefully, is not what they say, but what they do not say.

They do not say that believers will be judged at a different time from unbelievers.

They do not say that the judgment seat of Christ is distinct from the final judgment.

They do not say that this appearance happens before the final judgment.

All of these conclusions are inferred, and they are inferred to sustain a system that requires multiple judgments.

Theological Implications

The insistence on multiple judgments has some major theological consequences.

It suggests that the believer’s standing, though secure in one sense, remains subject to a secondary evaluation that can produce outcomes such as loss, shame, or diminished reward. All of which come uncomfortably close to a reconsideration of the believer’s status.

Unlike these inferences, when Paul addresses the believer’s future in these passages, he does so with a confidence grounded in union with Christ.

To posit multiple judgments to protect the believer from condemnation is therefore unnecessary, because Scripture already secures the believer in Christ.

At the same time, to maintain a separate judgment that introduces the possibility of shame, loss, or disappointment into the believer’s experience risks reintroducing, at a practical level, the very uncertainty that justification by faith alone removes.

Conclusion

Romans 14 and 2 Corinthians 5, when read in their contexts and within the broader witness of Scripture, do not support the notion of multiple, distinct judgments.

Neither does an appeal to the term bēma support this conclusion, because the word itself does not carry the meaning often assigned to it, and because its usage in these passages is governed by context.

The task that remains is to examine the text that is most frequently used to sustain the alternative view, namely 1 Corinthians 3, and to determine whether it can bear the weight that has been placed upon it.

*Spoiler alert: It cannot.

1. Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 2nd Edition. (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 2021), 789.