bmerr,
Most people would just dismiss it out of hand without taking the time to look at it thoroughly. I appreciate you opening a thread to ask what it is, it shows that you are at least willing to hear the matter before you answer.
It is certainly very likely that you haven't ever encountered this teaching. I doubt most seminary students would have ever come across it in their studies. It is easy to think that it is some new thing that never was taught and just forget about it, but the truth is that this has been taught to one degree or another by many throughout the history of Christianity, men that you likely know and have read even, but it tends to get buried for one reason or another.
It is the belief that there is a distinction made in scripture between being saved eternally through faith at the great white throne, and being saved 'millennially' at the judgment seat of Christ through faith mixed with works. We can't always read the word 'saved' or 'salvation' and assume we know exactly what it is talking about.
Acts 27:31 Paul said to the centurion and to the soldiers, Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved.
We believe that the warnings of Jesus to his disciples were literal warnings of not entering the literal kingdom. We believe that these warnings do not preclude a believer being raised up on the last day, just as Christ promised. That one salvation is a free gift, and another is a prize that we must strive for. The millennial kingdom of God is the high calling of eternally secure believers, not the happy meal prize of a works-based salvation. It is a time when Christ allows those who will pick up their cross and follow Him to share in His glory and reign with Him over the kingdoms of this world. It is something that He wants us to strive for, to suffer for, to hold more dear than our own lives in this world.
Matthew 13:44 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.
2 Thessalonians 1:5 Which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer:
So, in a nutshell, we suffer to be accounted worthy of His kingdom. He suffered to redeem us from the eternal penalty of sin.
