Some passages may seem at first sight to suggest "grades" of rewards or penalty, as when Paul speaks of builders who build with different types of materials (1 Cor. 3:10-15). But the text makes it clear, as James Dunn insists, that there are not six types of work (gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw), but simply combustible and noncombustible material (gold, silver, marble). This will survive the fire. Dunn comments, "Those who have Christ as the foundation of their lives will be saved...(even if in some cases) saved only by a whisker." God is faithful in completing what he has begun. The Last Judgment will reveal that those in Christ are in a right relation with God.
On the subject of graded "rewards" and penalties, we must refer back to what we asserted about "internal" consequences when we discussed the wrath of God in the last chapter. Clearly there will be no "external" distribution of these Christians. Any external "reward" would pale into insignificance compared with the privilege of being admitted to the glory and presence of God in Christ. If "heaven" means perfect bliss, there is hardly room for personal comparisons of achievement. But this may not preclude the "reward" of knowing that God's grace and gifts have been effective in unimagined ways. When Isaiah declares, "His reward is with him, and his recompense before him" (Isa. 40:10; 62:11), the meaning is that the very presence of God is his reward. Yet whether each believer will have the special satisfaction of knowing that his work had borne fruit and remains a significant factor, or will be eclipsed by the sheer glory of God and privilege of justification, is difficult to say with certainty. Certainly Paul suggests that deeds done "in the body" will feature somehow; but whether in individual terms or as contributory to the new creation as a whole is not clear. On the other hand, being in Christ cannot imply any sense of regret without questioning the all-sufficiency of the work of Christ.
Anthony C. Thiselton, Life after Death: A New Approach to the Last Things (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 181-82. Thiselton's citation of Dunn is from James D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998), 491.
