In my
article 1
Corinthians 3:15: A very un-Protestant Verse, I exegete 1 Cor 3:15 and its
immediate context, showing that, as with the Doctrine and Covenants, the Bible
affirms that certain people who will eventually be saved will endure posthumous
suffering, and that works are, in some sense, not for reward in the hereafter
merely, but affects one's eternal destiny.
Some
Protestants (e.g., James White) have tried to argue that 1 Cor 3 is about
Christian ministers merely and not
all Christians. However, many Protestants, even those who believe that Paul is
only speaking of rewards in the hereafter, state otherwise, including the
following scholarly source:
. . . after enunciating the principle that ‘each
shall receive his wages (μισθος) according to his labour (κοπος)’ (1 Cor. 3.8), he goes on to
speak of a judgment of ‘fire’ that awaits Christians on that Day:
. . . and the fire will test (δοκιμασει) what sort of work each one has
done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation [Jesus Christ]
survives, he will receive a reward (μιστος). If any man’s work is burned up, he will
suffer loss (ζημιωθησεται),
though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire (1 Cor. 3.12-15).
Though it is leaders in the church that are
primarily in focus in the immediate context, in all probability the judgment
that Paul envisages here extends to
every servant of Christ, and thus may not unreasonably be generalized to
include the entire Christian community. (Roger Mohrlang, Matthew and Paul: A Comparison of Ethical
Perspectives [Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series 48;
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984, 1994], 61-62, emphasis in bold
added)
