Question
What happens to believing members of the body of Christ who say and do evil things to you in your life and have cost you untold suffering and loss? I am wondering is there going to be a righting of these wrongs both on the part of the person who does it and the person who suffers because of it even though both are members of the body of Christ.
Response
My understanding is that the Lord will respond to such things at the judgment seat of Christ as part of His overall response to our walk as saints at that time. In passages such as Romans 12, I Corinthians 6, and I Thessalonians 4, we are taught and exhorted in view of our sanctified position “in Christ” not to walk as the unrighteous do, including wronging one another, defrauding one another, and the like. Rather as “God’s husbandry” that we are being so sanctified, we are to be bringing forth “the fruits of righteousness” in our conduct one to another, which fruits are produced from a renewed mind that values and esteems others and so abhors evil and cleaves to good. But wronging one another, defrauding one another, along with rendering evil for evil and avenging ourselves when wronged, are not such “fruits of righteousness,” just as these passages set forth. And in not being “the fruits of righteousness” that God’s Justice can accept, they will be responded to at the judgment seat of Christ as unacceptable, not “the fruit of the Spirit,” and they will undoubtedly materially affect the overall reward one receives from the Lord at that time.
As far as ‘righting wrongs’ is concerned, if we ourselves during this time do not do so ourselves when we do wrong to another, then my understanding is that the Lord’s response at the judgment seat will do so.
Keith Blades
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