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Have you ever wondered if everyone but the Christian Church is damned to hell? The Reformation gave us back something quite valuable by reminding us that the Bible teaches no hierarchy amongst believers. While some are apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors or teachers all are called to love and serve each other as brothers, in the face-to-face manner of Jesus, a great man yet who walked amongst men as friends and washed their smelly feet.
While it is clear that all followers of Jesus are called to mission, it is far from clear, from Jesus’ teaching, that only his followers would be saved. Let us set aside our black-and-white conception of the world divided into saved Christians and damned non-Christians and consider Jesus’ own words which, as will be plain, contained other categories. What emerges is an inclusive picture of people entering the Kingdom based not on religion or beliefs but on a multitude of other factors. Read the rest of this entry »
I hear again and again that if you believe Jesus died (i.e. atoned) for your sins you are saved. Paul says the Gospel is the power of salvation to all who believe (Rom 1:16) and thus, putting 2 and 2 together we arrive at the formula that the Gospel is, essentially, atonement.
Although this is indeed good news for those who believe it, I’ve argued elsewhere that this is not the real Gospel but a subjective implication. The real Gospel is the royal proclamation of Jesus’ Kingship, a message about Him, true for everyone, a call to all to obedience and allegiance. Nevertheless I’m prepared to consider that I might be wrong and that Atonement is the Gospel and I would like to explore that possibility.
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Doctrinally speaking, the church is in a mess. This worries conservatives, for whom doctrine is all-important, as much as it does liberals for whom doctrine is divisive and dangerous. On the whole, it damages our credibility when the world sees our doctrinal divisions and thinks: Why would a God permit such confusion and division? Why do some Christians teach this and others that? Best to stay agnostic!
The more I study doctrines and the Bible, the more I see that no doctrine captures and can account for the entire message and spirit of scripture. Doctrines try to make the Bible answer questions it doesn’t and we forget that the Bible is not a work of Systematic Theology designed to be a handy reference to all questions about God.
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Hell is a place nobody wants to be. Fortunately it doesn’t exist…yet. It’s also a place about which nonsense abounds. Satan is not the boss down there, he will be a fellow inmate. Hell is where justice is served – hell is just.
Hell is for those who don’t want to be in heaven, it’s just any place which is not heaven because heaven is so great that anything else just sucks.
Once a man is united to God, how could he not live forever? Once a man is separated from God, what can he do but wither and die?
Because heaven is a choice not a reward, hell is a choice because you either choose to be with God forever (heaven) or you don’t.
As C.S. Lewis puts it:
The Doors of Hell are locked from the inside.
Why should decent people who don’t want God go to hell? Again Lewis:
there are a good many things which would not be worth bothering about if I were going to live only seventy years, but which I had better bother about very seriously if I am going to live for ever. Perhaps my bad temper or my jealousy are gradually getting worse -so gradually that the increase in seventy years will not be very noticeable. But it might be absolute hell in a million years: in fact, if Christianity is true, Hell is the precisely correct technical term for what it would be.
Thus, if humans are immortal and either morally progressing or decaying there are only 2 logical outcomes:
- Heavenly creatures
- Hellish creatures
