InkL0sed wrote:If I was an incredibly good person (ie. I loved absolutely everybody, always helped them out, good to my neighbors, gave to charity, etc etc), but I simply didn't believe in God - would you consider me damned to Hell? Or would I be accepted to the Pearly Gates anyway?
I just discovered this thread, and read most of it. It restored hope that the kind of discussion that could go somewhere is possible.
Let me take a shot at it. I don’t agree with the explanations that have been given so far, and to be fair, I don’t think the Christians who gave them really agreed with them either. They just feel trapped into the idea that in order NOT to say that people are going to hell who have not had a fair chance, they have to compromise on the belief that Jesus is “the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me.”
I can sum it up by saying that anyone who gets to heaven, it is because of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross… whether they know it or not.
No, you can’t earn your way to heaven by being a good Buddhist or Muslim, or Existentialist. You also can’t earn your way to heaven by being a good Christian. Here’s an analogy that I have used before on why the Cross was necessary.
daddy1gringo wrote:A girl, a college student, is in traffic court for a speeding ticket. She is pronounced guilty and has to pay a $250 fine. Then something unusual happens. The judge stands up, removes his robe, (don't worry, he has a suit underneath) walks to the clerk and pays the fine. Then he resumes the bench and the robe. You see, the judge is her father. As her father, he knows that his college-student daughter can't afford the fine, and knowing her, he believes that she really won't do it again, so as her father, he has decided, that she should not pay the fine. But as a judge, he would be corrupt if he just let her off because she was his daughter. The only solution would be for him to require the payment, but to pay it himself.
That's why the cross was necessary. The word “omnipotent” isn’t in the Bible. I could go into the meanings of the Hebrew terms that are translated "God Almighty", but suffice it to say they don't give us semantic problems like the old "Could God make a rock that he can't lift?" There are things God can't do; He can't violate his nature, which includes justice and love. So with regard to a human race which he loves and wants to be in loving relationship with him now and forever, but which had used the free will with which he had gifted them to turn away from him into selfishness, he had a problem. Yes, God had a problem. He could not violate his love that would do anything to have us with him, nor his justice. He couldn’t just forgive us because He wants to.
He also can't die. Aside from being God, he is a spirit, not flesh. He had to take off the robe, inhabit flesh, become human, and pay the penalty himself. The violence that happened to Jesus at the cross is the measure of God's intense, passionate hatred for sin, and of his equally intense, passionate love for me, and for you.
So can that sacrifice apply to someone who has never heard of it? There’s a passage in the Bible (Romans 2: 12-16, especially 14 & 15) that is talking about the law, not the Cross, but it shows how God regards those who haven’t heard his words. To paraphrase it, when somebody who hasn’t heard tries to live right according to whatever understanding he has, sometimes he’ll do right and feel pretty good about himself, and other times he’ll do wrong and feel guilty, but God judges him by his heart. Note that the man is judging himself by how well he lives up to whatever religion or morals he has come to believe, but God judges him by something else entirely: the secrets of his heart, as only God can.
How about those who have heard and rejected it? Once again, God judges the heart. I think of the holocaust survivor for whom holding onto his Jewish identity is the only thing that kept his spirit alive. Actually, you can receive the Gospel and maintain your Jewish identity -- Jesus is very Jewish -- but such an experience could conceivably make it impossible to receive that. I also think of the person physically abused as a child “in the name of God.” People have been healed of those kinds of hurts and been able to receive it, but once again, only God can judge.
Remember though, He judges, not on how good you do at living according to whatever standard you think is right, but on a heart attitude toward him.
There are a lot of directions I could go from here, but I think I’d better stop and post this. and elaborate on related issues only if anyone is interested.
The right answer to the wrong question is still the wrong answer to the real question.