mattbraunlin
Member
What do We Think We are Doing?
One of the great moral questions of Christianity has been asked many times, in many forms, and until we find out the Truth in the afterlife, it will - and should - be asked:
What about those who never even hear about Jesus in their lifetimes? Over forty percent of the world's current population have never heard of Jesus Christ. Are we to believe that every one of those people are condemned to hell because they never encountered a Christian in their lives?
I am not a universalist. I firmly believe that there is a place called hell, and that plenty of people - far too many - go there. But a massive moral problem exists within the black and white view of either willful, conscious salvation or eternal damnation.
And that problem is us. You and me. Commissioned believers.
The Bible is explicit about Jesus being the only path to salvation. But it is also explicit about we being the method by which he brings his message of salvation to others. And therefore, the eternal consequence of the damnation of souls lies in our failure to reach those souls.
Now.
If this is the beginning and end of the Truth, then each and every one of us should be spending every waking moment preaching on the streets. Speaking to our loved ones. Reaching out on social media. If God uses us and us alone to reach others, then submitting to this aspect of his will should be our absolute, all-consuming priority.
How dare we watch a hockey game? How can we have the audacity to take an afternoon nap? Why do we waste priceless time with a private hobby? The very concept of fun should be the most unspeakable travesty imaginable if eternal souls are at stake. Dehydration, nervous breakdowns, two hours sleep a night… who cares? If as a result of our relentless determination to win souls, the Christian's life expectancy were reduced to forty years if we're lucky, it would be a tiny price to pay indeed to save any unbelieving passer-by from an eternity in the fires of hell.
This is a perfectly valid extreme, friend. A logical conclusion to a literal interpretation, an interpretation which I will have nothing to do with. It turns a walk with Jesus into a dystopian nightmare.
But, you might say, so many Christians have believed this interpretation! Billy Graham believed it!
Well, on this issue I disagree with Reverend Graham. You're allowed to do that, though I don't recommend it as common practice.
I firmly believe in the Great Commission, that we are Christ's body, given the solemn and beautiful responsibility of bringing God's Good News to the world. But I also believe in the Christ who turned water into wine for a wedding party while the blind and the leper were still suffering. In the Christ who healed only those within the physical reach of his very limited human frame and left entire continents untouched. In a Christ who is not so naive as to leave 100% of the burden of salvation in the hands of such fundamentally undependable creatures as us.
I have worked very hard to bring the Gospel to the lost in my life. But as long as I have failed with even one of them (and I have failed, to the best of my knowledge, with all of them), the Jesus of this hardline worldview can only be whispering in my ear, 'not hard enough.' And that is not the Jesus I know.
I know a Jesus who has brought me peace and joy and contentment. I know a Jesus who commands me to rest, who smiles with me as I have fun, who created cats. I know a Jesus who has never made me feel like a heartless monster when at any given second I thought about anything other than evangelizing to the unsaved.
This blatant moral dilemma at the heart of our faith is one of those issues which most hardliners either dodge or pretend does not exist, and when they don't, the reasons they use to justify their views tend to seem… well, dumb, like the farcical and unbiblical notion that God demographically arranged humanity so that those who never hear the Gospel never would have accepted it in the first place.
Now the inherent danger with my argument is twofold: one, it could lead Christians to be lax and laissez-faire about our ministry to the lost, which we must not do. Two, it could give false assurance to those who consciously reject Christ, pacifying that part of their minds that tells them they just might be wrong.
Both of these ideas are false and dangerous. God has assigned us the monumental task of reaching unbelievers, and hell is real, and to be taken very seriously by any unsaved person reading this.
But this cannot be the beginning and end of the story. Our God is too loving, and too powerful, and too wise to allow the fate of the lost to lie solely with us. A God who loved the lost so much that he died for them could very easily be said to depend on us by this hardline view. And God depends on us for nothing.
None of us usually like it when God leaves questions unanswered about the human experience. But when it comes to the ultimate judgement of human beings, I am more than happy to leave that one to Christ in faith.
I will never cease to do my best to preach the Gospel as I have been commanded. But I will also enjoy this beautiful life, and sleep soundly in the knowledge that the fate of mankind lies not in my hands, but in the hands of a just, merciful, loving, all-knowing God.
One of the great moral questions of Christianity has been asked many times, in many forms, and until we find out the Truth in the afterlife, it will - and should - be asked:
What about those who never even hear about Jesus in their lifetimes? Over forty percent of the world's current population have never heard of Jesus Christ. Are we to believe that every one of those people are condemned to hell because they never encountered a Christian in their lives?
I am not a universalist. I firmly believe that there is a place called hell, and that plenty of people - far too many - go there. But a massive moral problem exists within the black and white view of either willful, conscious salvation or eternal damnation.
And that problem is us. You and me. Commissioned believers.
The Bible is explicit about Jesus being the only path to salvation. But it is also explicit about we being the method by which he brings his message of salvation to others. And therefore, the eternal consequence of the damnation of souls lies in our failure to reach those souls.
Now.
If this is the beginning and end of the Truth, then each and every one of us should be spending every waking moment preaching on the streets. Speaking to our loved ones. Reaching out on social media. If God uses us and us alone to reach others, then submitting to this aspect of his will should be our absolute, all-consuming priority.
How dare we watch a hockey game? How can we have the audacity to take an afternoon nap? Why do we waste priceless time with a private hobby? The very concept of fun should be the most unspeakable travesty imaginable if eternal souls are at stake. Dehydration, nervous breakdowns, two hours sleep a night… who cares? If as a result of our relentless determination to win souls, the Christian's life expectancy were reduced to forty years if we're lucky, it would be a tiny price to pay indeed to save any unbelieving passer-by from an eternity in the fires of hell.
This is a perfectly valid extreme, friend. A logical conclusion to a literal interpretation, an interpretation which I will have nothing to do with. It turns a walk with Jesus into a dystopian nightmare.
But, you might say, so many Christians have believed this interpretation! Billy Graham believed it!
Well, on this issue I disagree with Reverend Graham. You're allowed to do that, though I don't recommend it as common practice.
I firmly believe in the Great Commission, that we are Christ's body, given the solemn and beautiful responsibility of bringing God's Good News to the world. But I also believe in the Christ who turned water into wine for a wedding party while the blind and the leper were still suffering. In the Christ who healed only those within the physical reach of his very limited human frame and left entire continents untouched. In a Christ who is not so naive as to leave 100% of the burden of salvation in the hands of such fundamentally undependable creatures as us.
I have worked very hard to bring the Gospel to the lost in my life. But as long as I have failed with even one of them (and I have failed, to the best of my knowledge, with all of them), the Jesus of this hardline worldview can only be whispering in my ear, 'not hard enough.' And that is not the Jesus I know.
I know a Jesus who has brought me peace and joy and contentment. I know a Jesus who commands me to rest, who smiles with me as I have fun, who created cats. I know a Jesus who has never made me feel like a heartless monster when at any given second I thought about anything other than evangelizing to the unsaved.
This blatant moral dilemma at the heart of our faith is one of those issues which most hardliners either dodge or pretend does not exist, and when they don't, the reasons they use to justify their views tend to seem… well, dumb, like the farcical and unbiblical notion that God demographically arranged humanity so that those who never hear the Gospel never would have accepted it in the first place.
Now the inherent danger with my argument is twofold: one, it could lead Christians to be lax and laissez-faire about our ministry to the lost, which we must not do. Two, it could give false assurance to those who consciously reject Christ, pacifying that part of their minds that tells them they just might be wrong.
Both of these ideas are false and dangerous. God has assigned us the monumental task of reaching unbelievers, and hell is real, and to be taken very seriously by any unsaved person reading this.
But this cannot be the beginning and end of the story. Our God is too loving, and too powerful, and too wise to allow the fate of the lost to lie solely with us. A God who loved the lost so much that he died for them could very easily be said to depend on us by this hardline view. And God depends on us for nothing.
None of us usually like it when God leaves questions unanswered about the human experience. But when it comes to the ultimate judgement of human beings, I am more than happy to leave that one to Christ in faith.
I will never cease to do my best to preach the Gospel as I have been commanded. But I will also enjoy this beautiful life, and sleep soundly in the knowledge that the fate of mankind lies not in my hands, but in the hands of a just, merciful, loving, all-knowing God.
