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jess321

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:smt100 :smt102
i am greatly struggling with believing that christians are the only ones getting into heaven. i may be way off base here but i am only 16 and have many questions.
i sometimes feel like there is a possibility that some other religions will go to heaven because they worship a god with the same pricipals as ours and (i don't think) some of them say that we are wrong. i would like to know if Jahovah's Witness', jews, and mormons are considered christians. and if only one religion or (dare i say) denomination is getting into heaven.
my grandmother (on my fathers side) is church of god and we are baptist. she believes that only church of god will get into heaven and i think that she is insane !!

i will not be offended by and comments and will greatly appreciate any help of insight i receive please let me know!!!
 
Your question is not unusual, nor is it suprising that you are struggling with it so deeply, when one considers that the doctrines of Christian exclusivism have been drilled into our heads since childhood.

Conventional Christianity has taught that there is only one possible way of entering heaven, that is belief in Jesus Christ. Now, while I do not deny belief in Christ as being important, and to many it is this belief that has changed their lives, surely we have a God who is love itself, who would not turn people away on account of what they 'believe'. Who would send people to burn in hell based on what they believe? For a belief is nothing more than the mental assertion and affirmation of a structured concept. We take something ungraspable, force into images or words in our head, and say "yes, I think that is the truth"

Alright...but where does that actually get one? What does a mental assertion do? Is that what gives us new life? Is it the simple belief, or affirmation that leads us to being born again? Perhaps belief may be a neccessary precursor to this, but certainly not for all.I know many people who have the heart and spirit that we, as Christians, are called to have when we enter a life with Christ. I know people who have devoted their lives to good, to love, to peace...yet they have not mentally asserted any belief in Christ.

It is not a belief that takes us into heaven. But this is not say that it is works either. I am not saying someone is tallying your 'score'. Rather we find heaven through the heart. It is what lies behind those beliefs and actions, that really counts in the eyes of God.

Of course many people on this site will disagree with what I have said, they will call me a blasphemer, they will quickly attempt to usher back on the path of intolerance, of animosity and exclusvism. For, in reality, we as human beings draw so much comfort from certainty. We love to be the 'sole possesors of truth', we love to know that we've got it right so we can bring to light how everyone else has it 'so wrong'

Such insecurities must be overcome, however, if the world is to ever exist peacefully. Read the Sermon on the Mount, where Christ gave the very heart of his message to the crowds. When he was done he said "Follow these words of mine, and you will have built your house on rock"

Yet the Sermon on the Mount contains nothing of theology, of doctrine or even belief. Rather the Sermon on the Mount is about managing the inclinations of the heart, of learning to love others, despite the wrong they may have done. Of learning to see past the illusion of material possessions and see the wealth that exists in nurturing the spirit. And this is what is neccessary to "build our house on rock", nothing more.
 
As Jesus said (in the sermon on the mount)...

Matthew 7:13-14 "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."

John 14:6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

Romans 5:1-2 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

Ephesians 2:18 For through him (Jesus Christ) we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

Ephesians 3:12 In him (Jesus Christ) and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.

1 Timothy 2:5 For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus....

Hebrews 7:25 Therefore he (Jesus Christ) is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.

Hebrews 10:19-22 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.

1 Peter 3:18 For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit...

John 10:14-15 "I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know meâ€â€just as the Father knows me and I know the Fatherâ€â€and I lay down my life for the sheep."

John 6:37-40 "All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."

1 John 2:2 He (Jesus Christ) is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

1 John 4:10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins...

Matthew 26:27-28 Then he (Jesus Christ) took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins...."

Have you found the narrow gate yet?

:o
 
jess321 said:
:smt100 :smt102
i am greatly struggling with believing that christians are the only ones getting into heaven. i may be way off base here but i am only 16 and have many questions.
i sometimes feel like there is a possibility that some other religions will go to heaven because they worship a god with the same pricipals as ours and (i don't think) some of them say that we are wrong. i would like to know if Jahovah's Witness', jews, and mormons are considered christians. and if only one religion or (dare i say) denomination is getting into heaven.
my grandmother (on my fathers side) is church of god and we are baptist. she believes that only church of god will get into heaven and i think that she is insane !!

i will not be offended by and comments and will greatly appreciate any help of insight i receive please let me know!!!
Click to expand...

Hi jess

Yes, those kinds of questions are asked (and answered) by Christians.

I think that the following links may help you as well.

Also have a look at this site:
http://www.christian-thinktank.com/

In Christ
Gary
:)
 
AHIMSA said:
Of course many people on this site will disagree with what I have said, they will call me a blasphemer, they will quickly attempt to usher back on the path of intolerance, of animosity and exclusvism. For, in reality, we as human beings draw so much comfort from certainty. We love to be the 'sole possesors of truth', we love to know that we've got it right so we can bring to light how everyone else has it 'so wrong'
Click to expand...

I certainly agree that some (maybe even most) will react the way that you say. And I certainly think that there is a lot of truth in what you are implying (or directly stating) - namely that an unhealthy "desire to be right and believe that others are wrong" informs much of what you will read on these boards. I do not know what to make of this myself. I know that such people will argue that "the truth is intolerant of error" and "if you don't like what I am saying, take it up with God", etc.

Furthermore, there is a kind of unhealthy vicious circle effect - the more an "extreme fundamentalist" is criticized for his certainty and hardline position on certain issues, the more that person thinks he is being persecuted for the sake of the kingdom, etc. However, from what I often read on these boards, the criticisms are often justified.

I have, somewhat reluctantly, left what I will call "fundamentalism" and embraced a more "liberal" or moderate form of Christianity (I am not afraid to use the "L" word). However, I must agree with the content of Gary's post - if one is going to take the scriptures at all seriously, we must accept the gift of life Jesus, and only Jesus, offers.

I think that it is entirely possible for a person to believe in the "life only through Jesus" view (as I do despite my "moderate" position), and yet not engage in some of the less attractive behaviours or intellectually dubious ideas that are often associated with certain quarters of the church. One can be a Christian and yet accept the challenge that there is a lot of ambiguity in life. One can be a Christian and believe that the world is not 10,000 years old. One can be a Christian and believe that, in this world, we see "through a glass darkly". There is no need to adopt the "one-verse-at-a-time-God-said-it, I-believe- it, that-settles-it" kind of mentality.
 
If the gate is narrow, does it mean that few will be saved? Are the vast majority of mankind to be damned?

Again, I trust our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ and His answer to the same question.

Luke said:
Luke 13:22-30 Then Jesus went through the towns and villages, teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem. Someone asked him, "Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?"

He said to them, "Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, 'Sir, open the door for us.'

"But he will answer, 'I don't know you or where you come from.'

"Then you will say, 'We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.'

"But he will reply, 'I don't know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!'

"There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out. People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God. Indeed there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last."
Click to expand...

In his classic "Studies in the Sermon on the Mount", Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones explains:

Martyn Lloyd-Jones said:
Leave a question like that to God; God, and God alone, knows how many will be saved. It is not your business or mine to discover how many are to be saved.

Our business is to strive to enter, to make certain that we are in it; and if we make certain we are in it, one day in glory, and not until then, we shall find out how many companions we have. And it may very well be that we shall have a great surprise. But it is not our business now. Our business is to enter in, to strive to enter in, to make certain. Enter in, and you will find yourself amongst the saved, amongst those who are to be glorified, amongst all who look unto Jesus, 'the author and finisher of our faith'. (page 555, chapter "The Narrow Way")
Click to expand...

:wink:
 
even me (non christian, im an atheist actually) can answer that from stuff I have learned.


God loves everyone right? even sinners right? and god can forgive.

God would not punish someone for doing somethign they did not know was a sin correct? Like if 2 people that did not have any knowledge that they were brother and sister, happened to get married *seperated at birth, taken away ect ect* and they had no clue, and died never knowing nor repenting, God wouldn't say "hey, because u didnt probe like mad to make sure, your not getting in"
 

thanks for all the help i really appreciate it and i will ask if i have any more questions. i have been saved for a while it is just a lot harder than it looks to stick with it even if everyone dosen't realize you are struggling. i guess it is natural to struggle like a test from god or something.
but thanks again.
:bday:
 
When I finally gave up on the belief in God, it was a scary time. After all, I knew if I was wrong, I was going to hell for all of eternity. But i thought about it. I could not force myself to believe in God just like I could not force myself to believe 2+2=5. So if there was a good God up there, then He would understand and not punish. If He did punish because I could not find Him, then He would be evil and I would not want to worship Him.

Don't know if that helped you, but that is how I eventually reconciled my fear of hell.

Quath
 
Yes Quath, your words prove conclusively that you were NEVER a Christian.... Christian have the Holy Spirit to confirm and reassure and look to follow Jesus. IF you had a relationship with Jesus, you would never have let it go. Therefore you never had such a relationship.

So you can still come to a saving knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. It took me 30 years. But you will have to humble yourself and honestly seek the Lord. He rewards all honest seekers.
 
what about people who have never heard of him and will never know about him will he punish them for other people lack of teaching
 
^ Jess, you may want to read Lee Strobel's a case for faith. It discusses and clarifies many of the objections your raising.
 
Gary said:
Yes Quath, your words prove conclusively that you were NEVER a Christian.... Christian have the Holy Spirit to confirm and reassure and look to follow Jesus. IF you had a relationship with Jesus, you would never have let it go. Therefore you never had such a relationship.
Click to expand...
I have met people that have been on fire for the Lord and full of His Holy Spirit. But over time they fell away. So I guess you would say they imagined they had the Holy Spirit. So if people can imagine it, how do you know you are not imagining it?

Quath
 
Quath said:
Gary said:
Yes Quath, your words prove conclusively that you were NEVER a Christian.... Christian have the Holy Spirit to confirm and reassure and look to follow Jesus. IF you had a relationship with Jesus, you would never have let it go. Therefore you never had such a relationship.
Click to expand...
I have met people that have been on fire for the Lord and full of His Holy Spirit. But over time they fell away. So I guess you would say they imagined they had the Holy Spirit. So if people can imagine it, how do you know you are not imagining it?

Quath
Click to expand...

Many people marry promising an entire lifetime of commitment to their partner. Later in the marriage, they divorce their partner, often as if there were no sincere marriage relationship at all. Does this mean that many people imagine marriages? Are some marriages shams while other are totally committed? Are these "sham marriages" discernable from the "real" marriages? How do you know Quath, if you are in an imagined or uncommitted marriage or not?
 
I think that it is entirely possible for a person to believe in the "life only through Jesus" view (as I do despite my "moderate" position), and yet not engage in some of the less attractive behaviours or intellectually dubious ideas that are often associated with certain quarters of the church. One can be a Christian and yet accept the challenge that there is a lot of ambiguity in life. One can be a Christian and believe that the world is not 10,000 years old. One can be a Christian and believe that, in this world, we see "through a glass darkly". There is no need to adopt the "one-verse-at-a-time-God-said-it, I-believe- it, that-settles-it" kind of mentality.
Click to expand...

Drew,

While i do respect your input, It is however, equally as ignorant to assert that only Christians find heaven as it is to assert that the world is only ten thousand years old.

You see, I myself am not a Christian, yet I have had a profound experience of God, an experience which I find to be more relevatory as each day passes, by this I mean, I am coming towards a much more intimate knowledge of my self and the sacred and the very thing which binds those two together.
Never, as a Christian, have I felt God in such a way. I desperately clung to Christianity for some time, seeking God, seeking Christ. Yet only in leaving Christianity did I have the true and undeniable experience of God.
Yet, by your very beleifs, you assert that this must somehow be false. That since I do not know Christ, my experience of God can not be real, it is either false, self-induced or, at best, only a fragment of what I would find if I turned to Jesus. Such a belief is ignorant beyond comprehension. For by this exclusivist belief, you assert to know the very nature of my experience of God, while you yourself have not experienced it through my perspective. How do you know that your relationship with God is somehow better than mine, unless you yourself were me?

In short, the notion of Christian exclusivism denies the reality behind every non-Christian spiritual experience. For example, one of my greatest role models is the Mahattma (literally meaning Great Soul); Gandhi.

Now when I look at the deeds of Gandhi, at the incredible things he did, when I read his inspiring words, I see a man who felt and touched the Living God. He was himself a Hindu, but God shone through him so much so that some think of him as a Christ figure. Would your God let this man burn?

I suppose its not even a question of whether or not Gandhi would go to hell, but would you not say that Gandhi embodied the very principles to which Christians are called to display? I could think of few greater role models for people of any faith than Mahattma Gandhi. Could you deny his experience of God, for he was a deeply religious man?

If Gandhi was in hell, I would gladly sit there with him in protest of the kind of God that would place him there.

To say that the phrase "I accept Jesus as my Lord and savior" is somehow the very key to eternity virtually equates to, as Marcus Borg put it, "Salvation by syllables."
 
Jesus is Lord

AHIMSA said:
To say that the phrase "I accept Jesus as my Lord and savior" is somehow the very key to eternity virtually equates to, as Marcus Borg put it, "Salvation by syllables."
Click to expand...

I do accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour. That is a summary of my Christian belief. In fact, the shortest Christian creed was "Jesus is Lord"... it is filled with meaning but obviously is not understood by unbelievers.

Romans 10:9-10 - 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. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.

1 Corinthians 12:3 - Therefore I tell you that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,†and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,†except by the Holy Spirit. .

2 Corinthians 4:4-5 - The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.

Colossians 2:6-7 - So then, just as you received Jesus Christ as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

John 10:30 - Jesus: “I and the Father are one.â€Â

Thank you Lord; beautiful Saviour!

:)
 
Darck Marck said:
Many people marry promising an entire lifetime of commitment to their partner. Later in the marriage, they divorce their partner, often as if there were no sincere marriage relationship at all. Does this mean that many people imagine marriages? Are some marriages shams while other are totally committed? Are these "sham marriages" discernable from the "real" marriages? How do you know Quath, if you are in an imagined or uncommitted marriage or not?
Click to expand...
People that divorce do not doubt their spouse had existed. yet people that fall away from Christianity doubt the Holy Spirit was really with them. There is a big difference in this.

These people thought they had a spirit in them. At the time when they thought they had the Holy Spirit, do they have it, or do they think they do but don't?

Quath
 
Did i ever say that Jesus was not Lord? I consider myself to be a devoted disciple of Christ. However I am not so narrow minded as to demand that all make some condensed theological claim as their ticket into the 'pearly gates'.

Christ is so much more than words, concpets, ideas or images. Let us not confine him to such.

:D
 
First of all, using the 'narrow gate' passage from the Sermon on Mount does nothing for Christian exclusivsm, many Christians are quick to place their latter understandings onto the passage, and since they already consider their religion to be exclusive, they assume Jesus was talking about the same thing.

Now I have gone over this on other posts, but I will state it again;

The Sermon on the Mount in Christ's core teaching to crowds of people. Now, keeping in mind that these people could not follow him everywhere, as they had lives to tend to, a sermon from a great teacher in those days would summarize his entire message, his entire viewpoint on life. This is the Sermon on the Mount.

The Sermon on the Mount contains nothing to do with theology or doctrine, or "believing in Christ as your one and only savior". Rather the Sermon on the Mount is the Path, which Christ lays out for all to follow if they wish to truly find God.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for their is the kingdom of heaven
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted..." ect.

The Sermon contains teaching on love, on how we are to react to our enemies, how we must control our thoughts as to control our actions, how egotism is dangerous, how we must see the futility in materialism. This is the entire message of the Christ summed up in one sitting. These things, to love your enemy, to turn the other cheek, to control your thoughts, to abandon materialism....this is the narrow path!! For to do these things are so much harder to do than utter "I believe in Christ as my savior." And you should take note that these teaching are very much universal, and inclusive to any person of faith.

And Christ says himself, follow THESE words, and you have built your house on rock. THESE WORDS! The entire path is laid out for us in this sermon.

This was not a teaching to his disciples alone, as several have claimed, but to the crowds, for they were "amazed at his teaching" Matthew 7:28

So now that we have that settled, Christians continue to defend Christian exclusivism by giving passages from the Epistles. Take note, these are the words of Paul and others...not the words of Christ. Remember that Paul knew Jesus only through his experience of the Sacred. We know Jesus in the same way. Why is Paul's opinion, then, divine?

Lastly, whilst there are other potential quotes to support Christian exclusivism, primarly from John, I reject them as either as additions to Christ's words, or as being taking out of context and not in line with Jesus actually meant by it.
 
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