Sunday Thoughts

I've written before on my difficulties with reconciling the idea of a loving God with a God that would condemn people to eternal punishment for not saying the right words, and why it is I came to believe that the latter is wrong. It's an important topic for me, though, so I have some other thoughts on it.

Of course a large number of Christians do believe that non-Christians (and sometimes, the 'wrong' kind of Christians) are going to Hell. Their justification for "Only Christians are saved" is frequently backed up by two verses I think are both wrongly taken in conjunction and misinterpreted to begin with. Both are from John. The first, and most famous, is John 3-16:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

The second, from John 14, is usually only quoted in part: "No one comes to the Father except through me."

Now, on the face of it, those things seem straightforward. Jesus says he's the only way for people to get to Heaven, that believing in Jesus is the only way to get to Heaven.

But Jesus wasn't really fond of straight-up declarations. I'm not saying he never made them, but he was a lot more fond of parables and and illustrations that illustrated the message, and only after he told those parables would he explain the point.

In part because of that, I don't think Jesus was proclaiming his divinity, his status as the son of God, his deific power of the ability to save us, whatever you want to call it... I don't think that was his point in the slightest.

In the first verse, possibly the most often quoted verse of the Bible, I think he's making a specific promise: the people who do believe in Jesus (and I think that means more than mouth noises about how he's the Savior, but also acting in the way Jesus taught people to act) definitely get to go to Heaven. But that doesn't mean other people might not get to go, too. Jesus was fond of letting people know that some of the very neighbors they looked down on were good people who would likely get to go to Heaven, after all.

The second verse is rarely quoted in full, and almost never in context. I won't quote the entire chapter of John that I think is the required context, but I will give my summary of it, my reading of it, if you will.

In it, Jesus is speaking with his disciples, who are having some troubles with the idea that Jesus is leaving them for a time, to face his death and his resurrection. He says he is going to Heaven to make a place for his disciples, and then he will come back and take them with him. When Thomas asks Jesus how they will know the way, then he says that he is the way, and the way they can know God, as he acts for God, and that God acts through him. But the rest of the chapter is also important, and it's unfortuante that so few people seem to have taken it into account when throwing around the half of John 14:6 they like to quote. Because later in that same chapter, Jesus explicitly says that if a person loves him, he will obey his teaching, and therefore God will love that person, and that that is why God and Jesus will take that person into Heaven.

In other words, following the types of things Jesus taught—humility, charity, and love—is the way to please God. That those behaviors are the ones that make God want to bring you to Heaven. Not the literal belief in Jesus' existence, but the belief in his message. A message, he promises, that the Holy Spirit will continue to put into their hearts, to remind people of what is good and right. What we see as our own conscience at times.

That reading is a far more uplifting one. Jesus isn't a disciplinarian telling you there is only one right way to act and threatening punishment if you don't act in that way, but a guide who tells you the broad outlines of how to lead your life, and promising a reward to those who do. And that is the emissary of a loving God.