JUDGMENT SEAT (Βῆμα). In Acts 7:5 bēma means “step,” “stride,” or “length,” but elsewhere in the NT and most often in Gr. lit. it means “tribunal,” “judicial bench,” “judgment seat” or “throne,” traditionally erected in public from which judgment and other official business was conducted.

Herod Agrippa I thus addressed the people of Tyre and Sidon (Acts 12:21). Jesus was brought before Pilate’s judgment seat (John 19:13; cf. Matt 27:19). Jews at Corinth accused Paul before the tribunal of the Proconsul Gallio who drove them out, but ignored the beating of Sosthenes there (Acts 18:12, 16, 17). The remains of a public rostrum which was prob. the one before which Paul was brought still stand among the ruins at Corinth. Later Paul was brought before the judgment seat of Festus at Caesarea (25:6, 10, 17).

Ironically the roles will one day be reversed, and Jesus who was unjustly judged by men will sit in righteous judgment over them. “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done in the body” (2 Cor 5:10; cf. Rom 14:10). This includes even those who are reconciled. While they have the righteousness of Christ, their work will be tested (2 Cor 5:18-21; cf. 1 Cor 3:13-15). See Eschatology.

Bibliography Arndt, 139; O. Broneer, “Corinth: Center of St. Paul’s Missionary Work in Greece,” BA, XIV (1951), 91, 92; A. N. Sherwin-White, Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament (1963, 1965²), 24ff.