Board index ‹ Salvation

[Koog]

Jesus supposedly has infinite compassion. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if someone had not believed Jesus was the Lord but otherwise lived a perfect life, and after dying realized their mistake and professed that Jesus was the savior after all, Jesus would essentially be like, nope, too late. Eternal suffering for you. This seems very out of character. I'm asking how this is consistent with infinite compassion.

[Clark Kent]

Thank you for your question. This is a very intriguing question. But I think it's a little misstated and I'll try to explain what. It's not as if Jesus stops forgiving. He did all the forgiving on the cross. There is no more to do or no further He needed to go. It's all there. But when we die, if we don't have a payment for our debt we've incurred, then we must be held accountable. There must be justice. I see what you are saying . Why can't people just say, after death, I see now it's true and I believe. And then that be good enough. I think there is a difference between intellectual belief and volitional belief. Even the demons know Jesus is God and all this is true. Be they do not submit, surrender, and follow God. I think the same follows here. People who may even know the truth intellectually still may not submit to His authority. And the Lord is all knowing. So He knows those that will never trust. Not that He is determining the outcome because we do have the choice to believe or reject, but there are going to be those who will never accept His free gift of salvation.

[jimwalton]

Someone actually asked Jesus a question that brought up this very point. It's in Luke 13.22-30. They asked Jesus if only a few would ever make it to Heaven. Part of Jesus's answer was "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.’ " It seems to be quite clear that there are no second chances. If you have all the needed information available to you NOW, and yet you reject God, then seeing Him won't change your mind.

One would think that seeing would make all the difference, but the Bible shows it quite differently. The two times in the Bible when God was most obvious (during the Exodus and during Jesus's life) were also the times of the most heated rejection of God.

Let me go back to the very beginning. Isn’t it astounding that some spiritual beings—who knew God by experience, could see him and hear him, knew his goodness, his greatness, and his power—could rebel against God and abandon their positions (Jude 1.6) in defiance against God? How is that possible? There weren’t even any filters (as far as we know) between them and God, and yet they turned against him. It’s obvious to me that even a direct experience with God doesn’t make it certain that one will follow him.

James 2.19 talks about demons who believe in God, sure enough, but don’t follow him. They know all about him, so we can assume, and yet they don’t follow God or “believe in him” in the sense of love and obey him.

We know that the children of Israel who were part of the Exodus got to see spectacular wonders of God’s miraculous doings, and yet many of them were rebellious and unfaithful. We also know that thousands of people got to see Jesus, hear him speak, and watch him do miracles, and yet they didn’t all turn to being disciples.

What gives? It seems obvious to me that a direct experience of God is not what turns to soul towards belief. Even exposure to him in heaven (as Satan has) in all his glory and power doesn’t do the trick. It’s weird, isn’t it? You’d think if God made himself more obvious more people would turn to him, but that doesn’t seem to be the case at all. What seems to be the truth is that people desire to follow God or they don’t, in their hearts and minds, and it has very little (if anything) to do with the evidence of God’s direct existence or being. It seems that if people have an inclination towards God, they are persuaded by the evidence, understand belief, and choose to love; if people do not have an inclination towards God, even if someone rises from the dead they won’t believe, and all the direct contact with God and irrefutable evidence is sloughed off as inadequate, worthless, and unconvincing. I’ve had a thousand of these conversations.

Some parts of life we get to keep changing our minds (I have a closet full of clothes and try on many different outfits before choosing. Ah, but eventually I choose, even though I still have the choice to run back to the closet and switch.) Some parts of life we have to make a decision and can't easily go back on it (joining the military, marriage, etc.) Some choices can never be taken back: a bullet fired, a nasty word spoken, a punch to the face delivered, bungee jumping once our feet have left the platform, sky diving, etc.

Decisions about God and eternity are not like ice cream cones. They are deep decisions we make about the evidence we see, the state of our minds, the convictions of our deepest heart and soul, the weight of values, and the direction of very being. They are both intellectual and visceral, both academic and mysterious, based on both faith and sight. They are not cavalier. I happen to think it's naive to think that being confronted with the realities of eternity will effect any change in anyone. Right here in this life we are confronted with—pounded with—information from every side, evidences, world views, philosophies and theologies, to the point that not only do we make decisions, but we shape our beings on the basis of them. And on occasion there are powerful forces that motivate us to change our positions on matters of eternity. But our worldviews become settled, and part of our being, to the point where they are who we are, and not subject to change. Jesus said, "Even if someone came back from the dead, they wouldn't believe." At some point evidence gets filtered by the worldview rather than vice versa.

The teaching of the Bible is that the afterlife is like this. After death people are assessed by the One who can see the thoughts of the mind, the designs of the heart, the decisions and convictions one truly has, and the decisions that would not be changed no matter what they see and hear. And that people will be sent to their appropriate and chosen destiny by the One who can judge honestly and fairly, without error.