Does the bema seat judgment affect your eternal destiny?
No. The bema seat judgment concerns rewards for believers, not eternal destiny. Salvation is settled the moment one believes, and the judgment seat determines only how much reward a believer receives for things done in the body. The unsaved are not in view here.
Les explains that verse 10 speaks only to believers, not to the unsaved person at all. The judgment seat of Christ is not putting salvation in the balances; it determines reward. Les notes that the term "judgment seat" scares people and is an unfortunate translation. The correct Greek term is the bema seat, a raised podium and seat of judges. In the Olympic Games, the bema seat was at the finish line, where the judge determined who was first, second, and third. Les emphasizes that nothing in the bema seat judgment involves our eternal destiny—that is settled. But the bema seat will determine how much reward. As a believer, salvation was settled the moment one believed, but believers are not to sit in an easy chair and let life go by. They are to get busy and work, first to bring glory to God's name and also for their own personal benefit of reward.
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.
More Questions
What analogy does Paul have in mind when he speaks of the bema seat?
Paul's analogy for the bema seat is more likely the Olympic awards scenario than the political bema seat of government.
Is the judgment seat of Christ about salvation or about reward?
What believers receive at the judgment seat of Christ for the things done in the body, whether good or bad, is not salvation being put in the balances but reward.