2 Corinthians 5:10

2 Corinthians 5:10. For we must all be made manifest before the judgment-seat of Christ (The word means more than ‘appear:' compare 1 Corinthians 4:5, ‘till the Lord come... and make manifest the counsels of the heart'),

that each one may receive the things done in the body (Gr. ‘the things through the body') the organ of all human action,

according to what he hath done, whether it be good or bad. The ‘we all' who are to appear together, refer specially here to the preachers and those they have preached to. (The universality of the judgment is expressed sufficiently elsewhere.)

Note. Three important points are made plain here: (1) That it is untrue that there will be no formal judgment of the righteous when Christ comes. For here the “bad” and the “good” meet together, to be both alike judicially treated; and whatever formality of judgment there may be in the process, it will be the same for both. And though our Lord says that on believing, men “come not into judgment, but have passed from death unto life” (John 5:24), this only means that on believing men cease to be in a condemned, and enter on a justified state, passing from death unto life. Hence (2) that there is no ground for alleging that the judgment of the wicked will take place a thousand years after the Lord comes, and consist exclusively of the wicked; nor (3) that after death saints, imperfectly sanctified here, will (whether by purgatorial fires or any otherwise) experience a change to greater perfection. For if it is on the deeds done in the body that the judgment is to be held, it follows that no change effected after they have left the body will be taken into account in fixing their final state.