Of Wages and Rewards - 1

Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal; so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. (John 4:36)

This is a very exciting text for me. It used to not be so compelling but now with my knowledge of the true nature of heavenly rewards and how our brains are designed by God, I now find it full of rich meaning and potential.

Something I find that grabs my attention in this verse is the word wages. Many teachers have made an emphatic note that one of the main differences between God's kingdom and Satan's is that God offers eternal life as a gift while sin pays people wages. That is definitely something I do not want to discount in the slightest. But given that context it could be somewhat confusing to come across a verse like this and begin to wonder if we understand it correctly or not.

One thing that helped to un-confuse this for me some years ago was when I realized that the gift of eternal life given us by God and the rewards promised for the faithful are completely separate and distinct things. If we ever have any notion that eternal life in any way whatsoever is part of our rewards we are immediately caught in a caustic deception of Satan. That is the basis of legalism which is a terrible trap in which many people are caught and deceived without knowing it.

On the other side of the problem, thinking that our assurance of eternal life leaves nothing to our responsibility is equally dangerous and lethal thinking. There will be no one in heaven who does not have some rewards. And it is very clear in the Bible that there really is such a thing as rewards as well as different kinds or quantities of rewards. I have written more extensively on this topic which in itself is a very exciting breakthrough for me personally. It is very helpful and maybe even necessary to view this verse in the context of that understanding.

In fact, this text for me is actually a confirmation of the some of the insights I received about the nature of rewards in God's system of government. Our ideas about rewards and punishments are so completely infected with selfishness, pride and our distorted perspective from living in a sinful world all of our lives that it is very difficult for us to grasp the true nature of heaven's reward system. But if we do not begin to see rewards from that perspective then this verse will only serve to confuse us or we will be tempted to twist the meaning from its original intent.

The use of the word wages here is very intentional I believe because it really is referring to God's reward system. Wages are something you earn; a gift is something you receive totally without any merit whatsoever. When the word wages is used then it alerts you to the fact that something must be going on in the life that will create a benefit, a reward that would not have occurred otherwise. Jesus' gift of salvation for us has absolutely nothing to do with anything we can do or achieve or earn; it is strictly a gift and a gift only. That means that the wages mentioned here is referring to something else that we receive from heaven, the rewards promised to those who cooperate with God in attracting others into accepting the free gift of life in Jesus Christ.

The word that really bends our mind in this verse is already. It is the one word intended to get the attention of both the disciples and anyone from there on who might hear about this event. Jesus wanted to make a point that would be plainly different than the assumptions we have about how and when things happen. The disciples, like us, think we understand the pattern or cycle of things in life; we think we can predict how God does things and we tend to plan too much based on our own assumptions instead of turning to Him on a continual basis to know His mind on any matter.

People all through history have gotten caught in the trap of this kind of thinking. Joshua thought he had God's ways figured out after Jericho and so failed to check with Him before launching an attack on the next city. Elijah thought He was familiar enough with God's methods to take things into his own hands and help God out when he killed the prophets of Baal. When James and John saw how a city of Samaritan's reacted to Jesus and His desire to stay overnight with them, they thought they knew how God does things and wanted to get revenge against these people using vengeful fire. All of these people and many more including most of us have assumed that we have figured out to some extent the patterns or formulas that God uses to accomplish His will. But that is not a very wise thing to assume.

Jesus is challenging that kind of assumption-based thinking in this case by declaring that when we think it is time to be sowing seeds God may actually be wanting us to perceive ripe fields instead all around us waiting to be harvested. We have a much more difficult time discerning the seasons than we think we do. God must not be put into a narrow box of our fabrication by assuming that He has to follow rules and formulas and methods that we think we have figured out about how or when He does things.

God is not nearly so much interested in our figuring out His ways as He wants for us to live in close relationship with Him. That means that if we live in more of a dependent kind of relationship we will be more keen to communicate with Him anytime we are faced with something and will learn to know His voice. Yes, we will need to be familiar with His Word to use as a check for what we think we are hearing; but if we do not become intimately familiar with the voice of God speaking to us frequently, we will find ourselves swirling around in confusion or amazement or consternation because God is doing something that we think violates what we insist is the way things are supposed to happen.

But this is only scratching the surface of this text. I want to get much deeper into it next time.