Levels of Reward In Heaven

I Cor 3:14-15 reads “If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.” God’s word teaches there will be different levels of reward in heaven.

Verses 6-15 show a man’s work in this context refers to his converts. Notice verse 9, “For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.” I Cor 9:1b is similar as it reads, “are ye (Paul’s converts, ptd) not my work in the Lord?”

In I Cor 3:14-15 two men are under consideration, the man whose work abides (his converts remain faithful), and the man whose “work shall be burned” (his converts fall away). Both men will be saved eternally assuming they themselves don’t fall away (“yet so as by fire”). The man whose converts remain faithful “shall receive a reward,” while the man whose converts are lost “shall suffer loss,” that is, he will lose his “extra” reward.

In the context both are going to heaven but one “shall receive a reward” that the other does not. Both are saved but one “shall suffer loss” that the other does not. Simply put, the two men under consideration will both go to heaven, but will receive different degrees of reward when they get there. What the extra reward is – is not described in this passage nor in any other as far as I know.

Don’t get this truth confused with the doctrine of once saved always saved. The Bible clearly contradicts this teaching (e.g. Gal 5:4). But the Bible does teach different levels of reward for the saved in I Cor 3:14-15. Truly everyone will “receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad” (II Cor 5:10b).

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