Hi Andrew
What do you see as the nature of the rewards in the age to come, Andrew?

Here is something that Jonathan Edwards wrote on the subject a long time ago.
http://andrewgroves.wordpress.com/2007/11/03/degrees-of-happiness-and-glory/

He has an interesting illustration about rewards and the ocean. I’d be interested in what people think of his comments.

Adam

That’s a top blog, Adam. How did you come across it? I see Andrew Groves is an Aussie. Guessing he is a Pressie.

Regarding rewards ... Sproul offers a good perspective quoting Augustine ...

The way historic Protestantism has spelled it out is that the only way we get into heaven is through the work of Christ, but we are promised rewards in heaven according to our works.

Saint Augustine said that it’s only by the grace of God that we ever do anything even approximating a good work, and none of our works are good enough to demand that God reward them.

The fact that God has decided to grant rewards on the basis of obedience or disobedience is what Augustine called God’s crowning his own works within us.

Adam

John Piper’s What Will the Final Judgment Mean For You? is a very helpful article on Revelation 20. It seems to me to make perfect sense of that chapter in the context of the rest of Revelation, the New Testament and the Bible.

I have been giving this a bit of thought and I believe that the works referred to in the NT are in regards to love as mentioned in 1 John 4

1 Cor 13 gives a good running commentary of what love is and is not when keeping this in mind when reading James 2:17-18, I believe James is saying that true faith shows true love and love is more than a belief - it has works of love that accompany it.

So I would say the question we need to ask of ourselfs and each other is how can we love others more?

Also of note here are the three penultimate clauses in the Athanasian Creed (which creed is commended in Article VIII of our 39 Articles as provable “by most certain warrants of holy Scripture”.):

At whose coming all men will rise again with their bodies
and shall give account for their own works.
And they that have done good shall go into life
everlasting; and they that have done evil into everlasting fire.

David McKay - 05 December 2007 06:54 AM

In a discussion on the Yahoo theology list, of which I am a co-moderator, some people have been rather tough on a bloke who is trying to see a way of making sense of both sets of passages, which does not simply ignore the passages about judgment according to works.

I think a lot of evangelicals have not developed a thelogy which makes sense of both.

Well I’m on that list David and I am surprised to see you make these comments here where folk don’’t know what has transpired. Several people on the Yahoo theology list have refuted a position put forward by some-one which actually argues for justification by works. The bloke proposing that has been very hard on anyone who disagrees with him. There are more issues involved than what you have mentioned here, but I won’t bring them all over to this forum. Except to say that the “bloke” you mention has done much more than try to make sense of passages. I think you are talking about something different to what he is.