Ugly Truth

Well, the last post created a lively meta, in which the delightful redaer named "Simon" was trying to make a point about 112 million murdered by communism in the period 1930-1945. However, his point was that all dead people go to heaven, and I told him he was wrong.

To that, he said:

okay then, put it this way -

- the good ones, in your (God's) eyes, will go to heaven. The bad ones will what... go to Hell?

What is your belief?

And if ever someone who loved the Gospel received a straight line, it was me upon reading Simon's simple question.

Simon, if you are reading, it is clear that you have never heard the Gospel, and for that I am truly ashamed and sorry. That anyone in the English-speaking world cannot have heard the Gospel at least once in his life is an absolute disgrace upon us who have a nearly incalculable ability to produce and disseminate information.

Thus, let me assure you that "the good ones" did not, do not go to heaven. There is only one who is good, and He never was absent from Heaven. The rest of us have never been good -- and certainly have never been good enough to deserve the reward of Heaven.

"How can this be," someone might ask, "if God made all creation 'good' and proclaimed that man is 'very good'?" The answer is that man -- the first man -- certainly chose to disobey God, and like him all of us also choose to disobey God. Be clear about this: we who are not the first man choose to disobey because we are sinners: our sins do not make us sinners but prove us to be such a thing.

And in that truth, all of us deserve death and condemnation. We are all sinners. I am a sinner. I unquestionably confess to you that I am at least as sinful as you are. And if God were to judge me right now based on who I am and what I have done in this life, I admit to you that I have sinned and I deserve the wages of sin.

In that 112 million who died under communism, Simon, all of those people were sinners -- even the ones who did not break any of Stalin's laws. All of them were sinners and all of them, when they died, deserved the punishment laid up for sin.

"Then in what way is your view better than the atheist's view, centuri0n," pipes up another who is reading, and is agape that this is what a Christian would say. "How does your view give comfort to, for example, this girl you have been on about?"

It is for this reason only: all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Yes: we may deserve death. We in fact do deserve death. But Christ died in order that the price of sin in us may be paid and therefore men will be saved.

There were no good men in the millions Stalin killed -- but some were saved in spite of their sinfulness, in spite of their hard hearts. And those who were saved did no save themselves but were saved by a Savior who did His work for them personally, specifically. This Savior worked, and is working today, to draw a people to Himself for the glory of God, and He will be glorified.

For example, this girl about whom I have written can find solice in the Savior who saves. In His resurrection, she has promise of a life where she does not have to suffer because she isn't the best one. An in the mercy of that promise, she can offer her best and her heart of hope to her daughter, rather than labor under the burden that both of them are condemned to this life of malfunctioning minds and bodies in which they are of marginal value at best.

That is what I believe, Simon: that there is a Savior who actually saves, and that He doesn't save because we are special or notable. Christ died for our sins, Simon, in accordance with Scripture; He was buried, and He was raised on the third day, in accordance with Scripture. This is the Gospel, Simon. Listen to it, if you have ears to listen. If today you hear His voice, do not harden your heart.