Bible Synapse
Are reward and punishment given in this life or the next?
Hard question · Psalms, wisdom and the prophets · raised by 2 of the lists sceptics circulate
See the passages joined in the interactive mapThe passages
“Behold, the righteous shall be recompensed in the earth: much more the wicked and the sinner.”
Behold, the righteous shall be recompensed in the earth: much more the wicked and the sinner.
Judgment begins at the house of God; Peter quotes the Greek of Proverbs 11:31: if the righteous are scarcely saved, where will the ungodly appear?
For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?
The Son of man will come in glory and reward every man according to his works.
For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works.
All must appear before the judgment seat of Christ.
For 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.
The dead, small and great, are judged according to their works.
And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
The objection
Proverbs says that the righteous and the wicked are repaid “in the earth” (Proverbs 11:31). The New Testament says they are rewarded when Christ comes and the dead are judged by their works (Matthew 16:27; Revelation 20:12).
The answer
The Bible teaches both: God’s justice is at work in this life, and it is completed at the last judgment. Proverbs 11:31 says that God’s repayment is not all postponed to another world. On earth the righteous are corrected and the wicked meet consequences, and if even the righteous are chastened for their faults, how much more the wicked. That does not deny a final judgment; it says that what happens now is a foretaste of it.
Peter joins the two directly, quoting this very proverb in its Greek form: “if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?” (1 Peter 4:18). For Peter the trials of God’s people now are the beginning of judgment “at the house of God” (4:17), and they point to the final reckoning. Proverbs itself looks beyond the present, for “the righteous hath hope in his death” (14:32). What God does in this life is real but partial; Matthew 16:27 and Revelation 20:12 describe its completion.
From the classic commentators
many sins go unpunished in the earth, and services unrewarded, which indicates that there is a judgment to come, and that there will be more exact and full retributions in the future state.Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, on Proverbs 11:31
Which words are used by the Apostle Peter, to show, that if judgment or chastisement begin at the house of God, or with the righteous, that the end of the wicked must be very bad; which entirely agrees with the sense of this passageJohn Gill, Exposition of the Bible, on Proverbs 11:31