One thing that always makes me uneasy is when I read a church's or a ministry's statement of faith that includes some sort of definition of who will be saved and who won't or who will go to heaven and who will go to hell. I have not yet read the whole Bible (though I intend to and think this is very important!) but in my reading and studying - particularly of the gospels and of Romans - I have never found a clear, black-and-white definition of who is going where after death.
Don't get me wrong - the Bible does make some promises on this subject. Romans 10:9 "if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Mark 3:29 "whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin." But the Bible does not put every human being in two boxes - the "going to heaven" box and the "going to hell" box. Only some. A large chunk of humanity is not put into either box.
Why would God do this? Why would He leave out this one piece of information that we all want to know?
Because we don't need to know it. Because our human pride would trample all over the Name of God if we started thinking we could judge. The problem? A whole lot of Christians think they can judge.
C.S. Lewis writes in Mere Christianity: "Here is another thing that used to puzzle me. Is it not frightfully unfair that this new life should be confined to people who have heard of Christ and been able to believe in Him? But the truth is God has not told us what His arrangements about the other people are. We do know that no man can be saved except through Christ; we do not know that only those who know Him can be saved through Him."
He goes on to say that since we don't know, the best thing we can do is get on board with God and His mission, become part of the Body of Christ and allow that Body to do the work of the Kingdom - to make disciples. "Getting saved" as we understand it - confessing with our mouths that Jesus is Lord and believing in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead, and putting our trust and our hope for salvation in Him alone - is the best thing we can do if we want eternal life and want it for others too.
But there's another catch: How in the world can I make myself believe something? I don't believe I can. In one way or another, I have to "see" it - I have to have reason to believe. Either that, or someone or something has to supernaturally give me the ability to believe. We can be saved by Jesus through faith. But how do I get faith?
I do believe there is some element of choosing involved, but I cannot make myself have faith. I'm not 100% sure why our faith matters so much to God, but one thing is clear: HE is the ONE who saves. I cannot save myself. I am not saved because of me or because of anything I do (or don't do). I did absolutely nothing to earn it. Even my faith doesn't earn me salvation. It's simply a (perhaps not the only) means by why which God gives it to me.
I believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that His death and resurrection has the power to give eternal life to every single human being that ever lived and ever will live. Whether or not that's what He decides to do with it is His own business, and although it's tough, I trust that He has a really good reason for doing it the way He chooses. And I really think that God chooses to leave us out of this process - to keep this a mystery - because He doesn't want us to start thinking of His Son as fire insurance. Jesus is much more than my "ticket" to heaven.
There was a street preacher at my school this past year who would preach hellfire-and-brimstone every Wednesday to passing college students. He usually had an illustration, often a big picture of flames. (No joke.) I wanted to ask him what makes him think that people are going to become Spirit-filled, fruit-bearing believers out of fear of fire. Does Jesus' awesomeness not outweigh the horror of hell? People are not going to believe that Jesus is awesome unless they encounter Him and see how wonderful He is.
This, I believe, is where we, the Body of Christ, come in. Other people that God wants to save are supposed to see Jesus in us. Some might say that because God wants to save the people around us, we need to evangelize all the time. Others might say that we need to feed the hungry. I think we need to do all of these things. Jesus was not only an evangelist. He was not only a prophet. He was not only a healer. He was not only a teacher. He was all of the above (and much more!). Here's our challenge: Are we, the Body of Christ, doing all of the above? Does the world see Jesus through us? Or does the world look at us and see judges? Fanatics? A bunch of people who are afraid of fire?
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