Biblical Recompense (and Digital Marketing for Churches)
By Christopher Jackson
In a healthy marriage, your wife desires you to desire her. Surprisingly, that simple observation opens the door to a neglected biblical principle, an error common in twentieth-century Lutheranism, and even a lesson for digital marketing in the Christian parish.
(I promise this will hang together better than it seems at first glance!)
Recompense and the Christian Life
Temporal and eternal recompense for our conduct is a theme that resonates throughout the Scriptures. Taken as a whole, four themes emerge:
Theme 1: Our Conduct Brings Just Recompense
Our actions have both temporal and eternal consequences, both for ill as just punishment and for good as just reward. This principle is at the core of the biblical witness.
Punishment for Evil is Just and Natural
The primitive and solitary prohibition of Eden carried a consequence:
“And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’” (Genesis 2:16-17, ESV)
Punishment as a just and natural recompense for evil is a consistent theme throughout the Bible. Here is a small sample:
A father’s idolatrous iniquity will bring iniquity back on his children, to the third and fourth generation (Exodus 20:4-5, Deuteronomy 5:9).
Disobedience to God would bring curses upon the Israelites, including blight, famine, infertility, danger in travel, confusion in business affairs, disease, drought, defeat in war, feeblemindedness, insanity, open crime and corruption, marital infidelity, enslavement, political subjugation, ill-repute, infestation, indebtedness, besiegement, disbursement, and many other curses (Deuteronomy 28).
While it may seem like the punishment doesn’t fit the crime in these passages, remember that in the near context of both is the giving of life itself: Adam being shaped and formed in a process that began in the primordial sea, and Israel having been brought up out of the depths of the Red Sea unto a new life at Sinai. To rebel against God in sin, therefore, was a rejection of life and an embrace of death and destruction.
Sometimes, however, the connection between one’s sin and the recompense one receives is represented even more tightly: “The wicked man . . . makes a pit, digging it out, and he falls into the hole that he has made. His mischief returns upon his own head, and on his own skull his violence descends” (Psalm 7:14-16). Lazy hands produce poverty (Proverbs 10:4). Haman is hung upon his own gallows (Esther 7:9-10). Those who lack in generosity will have a lack of blessing (2 Corinthians 9:6).
Some prominent Twentieth Century Lutheran theologians drove a wedge between sin and punishment, rejecting claims which held up the justice of punishment for sin. We will examine their claims a little later. However, the biblical witness is clear.
Reward for Good Is Just and Natural
While God warns of just and natural consequences for evil, He promises blessing in turn for good.
Returning to Genesis, the warning of death through disobedience implies life for obedience, and a good and pleasant life at that in the Garden of Eden. That theme continues at Sinai. Obedience to God’s commandments would bring familial and agricultural fertility, abundant food, pleasant travels, victory in war, success in business ventures, international renown, fair weather, and national economic and political superiority (Deuteronomy 28).
The man who keeps the Law of God is firmly rooted, fruitful, and prosperous (Psalm 1:3-4), and the righteous shall eat the fruit of their deeds (Isaiah 3:10). “The work of a man’s hand comes back to him” (Proverbs 12:14, ESV). Those who are generous will in turn generously receive (2 Corinthians 9:6).
Theme 2: Recompense May Come After the Grave
Often recompense for good or ill is realized in this world. If we conduct our business affairs diligently, honestly, and without greed in accord with the Seventh Commandment, people will generally trust us and do more business with us. On the other hand, if we develop a reputation for shoddy work, greedy prices and policies, and dishonesty, our business will generally suffer. If we honor the Fifth Commandment when it comes to our own bodies, exercising and watching our diets, typically we will enjoy better health than if we give ourselves over to gluttony and sloth.
However, recompense may tarry. While the Scriptures promise recompense, it can appear that the unrighteous are awarded while the good suffer. Certainly, at the cross evil men appeared victorious while the one man without sin seemed defeated.
At times this has roused doubts in the minds of the faithful. In the 73rd Psalm, Asaph recalls a crisis of faith that almost led to his despair and apostasy, aroused by envy of men impoverished in morality yet enriched in mammon
Jeremiah questions God on this point: “Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all who are treacherous thrive? You plant them, and they take root; they grow and produce fruit; you are near in their mouth and far from their heart” (Jeremiah 12:1–2, ESV). To put it another way: “God, you promised that the righteous would prosper as firmly rooted and fruitful trees (Psalm 1). And yet not they but the wicked do so.”
As Christianity spread within the Roman empire, the promise of just recompense for righteousness seemed unattainable to an entire category of people: the believing slave. The very nature of slavery meant that all the benefits of your labor belong to another.
Paul’s answer to that conundrum is the promise of heavenly reward: “Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ” (Colossians 3:22–24, ESV).
Paul also discourages slaves from wrongdoing by warning them that God will not fail to “pay back” for wrong done (Colossians 3:25).
The Bible hits that theme consistently. Asaph perceives that while the wicked may prosper in this life, they will meet a terrible end: “Truly you set them in slippery places; you make them fall to ruin” (Psalm 73:18, ESV).
Paul affirms that those who are evil are storing up wrath: “But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed” (Romans 2:5, ESV).
Christ was vindicated, and His evil enemies put to shame, on the other side of the grave.
Theme 3: Justification Is an Exchange of Recompense
For we sinners, the message that recompense for our transgressions will eventually catch up to us is bad news. But, the message of the Gospels is an exchange of recompense, Christ receiving the recompense for our sins and giving us the recompense of His righteousness.
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6, ESV). The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), and through His innocent and precious death on the Cross, Christ received that just recompense we have all deserved.
In turn, Christ extends the recompense of His righteousness to us. Christ fulfilled the Law to its greatest extent in His Cross, laying down His life in the ultimate act of love (John 15:13). The due reward of that love is offered to others: “For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:17-19, ESV).
The benefits of this exchange recompense, the forgiveness of sins, the reception of Christ’s righteousness, and eternal life, are not received by us on account of any work but instead solely and wholly through faith (Ephesians 2:8-9). Heaven is Christ’s reward, enjoyed by those who are baptized and believe.
Theme 4: Heavenly Reward Is the Christians’ Recompense for Loving Obedience
The Christian receives the inheritance of heaven purely through God’s work - the justifying work of Christ and the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. And yet God promises inheritance in heaven as a reward for loving obedience on earth. The Scriptures are clear on this. “Whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord” (Ephesians 6:8, ESV).
Other passages that clearly teach reward in heaven for the Christian: Matthew 5:11-12, Matthew 5:46, Matthew 6:1, Matthew 6:4, Matthew 6:19-21, Matthew 10:41-42, Matthew 16:27, Matthew 25:34-40, Luke 6:35, Luke 12:33, Luke 14:12-14, LUke 18:22, I Corinthians 3:8, I Corinthians 3:14-15, 2 Corinthins 5:10, Colossians 3:23-24, Hebrews 6:10, Hebrews 11:26, Revelations 14:13.
This teaching does not contradict the Doctrine of Justification. It does not teach that one gains eternal life by means of works. Instead, it is a promise given to the believer, so that he might strive to live out the Christian life here on earth.
Theme 5: God Invites Christians to Seek Reward
It is one thing to simply observe that reward comes from righteousness. It is another to encourage the pursuit of righteousness for the sake of reward. As we will see in a moment, Lutherans in the Twentieth Century warned against this, but the Scriptures have a different message.
Invitation to Temporal Reward
The Bible encourages the pursuit of righteousness for the sake of temporal reward.
“‘Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you” (Deuteronomy 5:16, ESV). God invites the Israelites to consider temporal reward when it comes to the Fourth Commandment. And, the reward for obedience to the Fourth Commandment seems clear. If on a society-wide scale children honor father and mother, then father and mother will have no lack of care in senescence; their lives will be long, and it will go well for them. But, the command isn’t given simply for the sake of father and mother, but also for children. If children submit themselves to the wisdom and guidance of previous generations, and if they allow their lives to be ordered by the governing authorities, then things will indeed go better for them than if they are churlish and disobedient.
That’s just one of the many ways God invites the Israelites to consider the temporal blessings of obedience on the one hand versus the curses that will come through disobedience on the other hand (Deuteronomy 28).
Proverbs encourages the stewardship of temporal wealth unto God’s glory with the promise that it will be increased (Proverbs 3:9-10).
Various forms of lawful gain are encouraged in the Scriptures. Paul encourages slaves to lawfully seek their freedom (1 Corinthians 7:21), the thief to take up lawful work so that he not only have enough for himself but also for others (Ephesians 4:28), and churches to temporally reward ministers (1 Corinthians 9:14).
Invitation to Eternal Reward
The Scriptures go even further than encouraging obedience for temporal gain. They also encourage them for eternal gain.
Christ says: “Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” ( Matthew 6:20–21, ESV). Jesus invites us to pursue heavenly treasures, but this leads to the question, “Why would he do so?”
The answer becomes evident in some of the circumstances Christ commends the pursuit of heavenly reward.
Jesus promises heavenly reward so that people would endure in the face of revilement and persecution: “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:11–12, ESV).
Jesus also promises heavenly reward so that people might show love and generosity even when it will not be recompensed on earth. If you love those who love you - even the heathens do this! Loving your enemies, however? Don’t expect anything back, but instead look to a return in heaven: “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil” (Luke 6:25, ESV).
Finally, Jesus promises heavenly reward for those who have sacrificed earthly gain for the sake of Christ's name. When Peter recalls the sacrifices he and the other disciples had made, Jesus does not rebuke him. Instead, he encourages him with the knowledge of the recompense he will have in heaven: “Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life” (Matthew 19:28–29, ESV).
Recompense: A Unifying Thread
As I’ve sketched it above, recompense is unifying thread woven throughout the Scriptures. God as creator is due our thanks, praise, service, obedience, and above all love. In our sin, we have failed to give Him the recompense that is his due and have earned for ourselves the just recompense of our damnation. Nonetheless, Christ took that recompense for our sakes, and offers us His due recompense according to His righteousness. And, the Lord invites us to pursue recompense, above all the eternal recompense that comes through self-sacrificial love for the neighbor here on earth.
As a rule, I’m not much a fan of unifying accounts of the Christian message. That was a special hobby of 20th Century Lutheran theologians, who proposed unifying principles such as “Law and Gospel” or “God Preached.” The problem with a unifying account is that it tends to smooth out the complexity and particularity of Christian revelation. Traditionally, Lutheran theologians such as Melanchthon, Chemnitz, and Gerhard simply listed theological loci, simply expounding the Scriptural witness, without some unifying account.
Therefore, I am putting this idea forward not as a comprehensive, unifying account of the Christian faith. Rather, I am arguing that this is a principle that can be seen consistently in the Scriptures.
Confessional Consistency
And, it is a principle that is reflected in the Lutheran Confessions. The Confessions are very comfortable using compensatory language.
Take, for example, the way the Confessions discuss the Doctrine of Justification: “Whenever we speak of justifying faith, we must keep in mind that these three objects belong together: the promise, grace, and Christ’s merits as the price and atonement. The promise is received through faith. Grace excludes our merits and means that the benefit is offered only through mercy. Christ’s merits are the price, because there must be a certain atonement for our sins” (Apology IV.53, emphasis added).
Compensatory language is also used to discuss Good works: “Faith must be the mother and source of works that are truly good and well pleasing to God, which God will reward in this world and in the world to come” (FC SD, Article IV, emphasis added). This teaching was so universally held, that the same article adds: “There is no controversy on these points among our theologians.”
20th Century Rejection of Recompense
Recompense is a thread woven into the fabric of the Christian message. Many 20th Century Lutherans tried to pull that thread.
Some of them pulled at the thread as it relates to God’s wrath. Werner Elert, for example, denied a “reasonable relationship between sin and punishment” (Structure of Lutheranism, Concordia Publishing House 1962, 39). He goes on to bemoan Johann Gerhard’s teaching that God’s wrath is just and a proportionate response to sin (ibid., 41). To put it in the terms of this essay, God’s wrath isn’t compensatory, a response to anything in man. It simply is.
Others have rejected recompense as it relates to justification. Gerhard Forde, for example, expressly rejected the idea that Christ’s death was payment for sin:
In the so-called “objective” theory it is maintained that God needed the death of Jesus in order to be able to be merciful to us. God is the object of the atoning act. The demands of his law, or wrath, or justice had to be “satisfied.” So we are exonerated because the cross was necessary to God. But the inevitable consequence of such thinking is that it doesn’t finally reconcile us to God. If the cross is necessary to pay God, God will be pictured as at worst a rather vindictive tyrant demanding his pound of flesh or at best an inept subordinate caught in the same inexorable net of law and justice as we are. The theory intended to foster reconciliation actually contributes to further alienation. (Caught in the Act: Reflections on the Work of Christ. Word & World 3/1 (1983). 24).
Forde goes on to ask: “If the death was payment, how could reconciliation be an act of mercy? Mercy is mercy, not the result of payment. If God is by nature love and mercy, why could he not just up and forgive?” (ibid., 24). His answer is that God did in fact just up and forgive.
Forde also denies the idea that recompense ought to factor into Christian good works. To him, good works are “works done for the neighbor without calculation or claim” (On Being a Theologian of the Cross: Reflections on Luther’s Heidelberg Disputation, 1518. Eerdmans, 1997. 104).
Gritsch and Jenson continue this line of thought: “Most ethical theories and all sensible persons have known that a good act cannot appropriately be done for an ulterior egocentric reason. If I feed my hungry neighbor in order that I may acquire stars in my crown, I thereby lose the claim to any stars. . . The radically proclaimed gospel frees me from moral egocentricity in that it does not merely tell me not to try to get anything out of my act for my neighbor, but that I cannot get anything out of it, that I will not in fact be rewarded at all” (Lutheranism: The Theological Movement and Its Confessional Writings. Fortress Press, 1967. 146),
When it comes to this account of good works from Forde, Gritsch, Jenson, and many others, it seems plainly obvious that this is simply an attempted baptism of Kantian ethics. It is a Christian patina on his maxim that ethical conduct only treats others as ends, and not means.
Your Wife Begs to Differ (Self-interest Is Not Selfishness)
Kant never knew a woman. If he had, his ethical perspective would have changed.
In the normal course of life, we have no problem with others acting with self-interest. In fact, we invite it. No place is this more evident than in romantic relationships.
If your marriage is healthy, your wife desires your affections. More than this, she desires your desire. She doesn’t want the mere outward act: “My husband behaves affectionately to me.” She wants the inner affection and desire: “My husband desires me, delights in me, and finds being with me rewarding.” She has no problem with you showing affection out of a desire for the pleasure this brings you.
This applies in nearly every human relationship. The Christian plumber who fixes my faucet: I am not at all scandalized or feel merely instrumentalized if he desires gain (payment!) from me. In fact, I want him to gain from me! It brings me pleasure to know that he will go fly a kite with the money I give him. (Literally. He is a kite fanatic.)
It brings me comfort with the knowledge that he likely also wants to please God with his work, and even gain reward in heaven for good work done. When it comes to the trades, much of the work is done in places that cannot be inspected. I can’t look inside the faucet to ensure that he has used the appropriate grease. If he works for God’s approval and reward, and that means better service to me and my family, then praise be to God!
Kant’s ethics and its baptized variants seem to operate on a zero-sum view of ethics. If I act with self-interest, then I cannot act in the interests of others. But, that is not how God designed human life together to work, and the best human interactions are ones in which multiple parties benefit. All at the same time, a Christian plumber can be moved out of a desire to serve me, a desire for financial gain, and a desire to please God without any contradiction. In fact, I believe that a plumber might do his best work when motivated by all three at once.
But, you don’t need to take my word for it. Christ himself taught us that the second table of the law can be summed up as “love your neighbor as yourself.” This implies self-love, and insofar as self-love implies self-interest, there is not contradiction between self-interest and looking for the interests of others. Paul warns the Phillipians to do “nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.” And yet he sees no contradiction to looking to one’s own interests as well as the interests of others.”
To put it succinctly, self-interest is not the same as selfishness. God condemns the one, but He invites the other. As with all sin, selfishness is merely the corruption of something that is good.
Recompense and Digital Marketing
The Lord has designed the world so that what we do tends to come back to us as recompense. “Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days” (Ecclesiastes 11:1, ESV). This is neither mechanical nor magical, but it is a principle which tends to be carried out.
A surprising number of people are searching for churches online, whether they know it or not. Some are searching directly for churches. There are 2.7 million searches for the query ‘churches near me’ every month. There are 49.5 thousand searches for “Lutheran churches near me”! Optimizing your church website and Google Business Profile for discoverability and to impel digital visitors to become in-person visitors is a means of blessing them. It is fulfilling their desire to discover new churches, and by doing that you are one step closer to your desire for them to visit and potentially become members.
Others are searching for churches, and they don’t even know it. Someone searching for, “What does the Bible say about having peace in my home?” is ultimately asking to receive the grace and mercy offered through Word and Sacrament, so that grace and mercy might prevail in his marriage. If your church has a search engine optimized article or a sermon on this topic, that individual may find it via traditional search or an LLM, and that may lead him to seek out a Lutheran church and maybe even your church.
In other words, if you seek to fulfill the requests people are making via search, it is highly likely that your church (or another Lutheran church) will benefit.
This is not theory.
In the 2000s, Our Redeemer Lutheran Church in Lexington, Kentucky, had a series of articles on their website on Lutheran theological topics. A student at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary encountered those articles via search. His family converted and joined that church.
I serve the only liturgical LCMS church in Door County, Wisconsin. As such, I have members who drive to my congregation from over an hour away. That is not accidental, as I have optimized my church’s online presence for discoverability in communities across my region.
A Lutheran school in Jacksonville, Illinois, was struggling with enrollment. By working on its SEO, it secured a waiting list for its preschool and filled up its enrollment pipeline.
Ultimately, digital marketing via search engine optimization is a means of serving the neighbor. Your neighbor desires information, and you are supplying it. It is likely that your church can be blessed by doing so. However, even if you see no benefit on this side of heaven, blessing others always leads to eternal reward for the Christian.
Free Review
And since I've just spent several thousand words arguing that seeking one's own good while serving one's neighbor isn't sinful, I'll make you an offer . . . .
If you’re not sure where to start on your church’s digital marketing via the foundation of search engine optimization, I will record a free review video. It will be personalized to your church and your community, and I won’t pressure you into a sales call.
Of course, I hope that some of you will eventually become customers, and I don’t believe that is at all inconsistent with the review also being a form of Christian service.
A Final Thought and Invitation
When I’ve proposed elements of this essay online, I’ve been met with much opposition. The Twentieth Century view of God’s justice and good works was thoroughly inculcated in the LCMS until recently. It certainly was strongly impressed upon me in my seminary education!
If you have any questions or have any corrections to offer, I’m glad for you to reach out. I’m active on X, and you can also reach out via email: chris@churchseo.io.
God bless,
Pastor Christopher Jackson
AKA SEO Priest