On Who Goes to Heaven and Who Doesn’t

For a very, very long time, Christians of all flavors have been talking about heaven and hell; not so much what they might or might not be, but who gets to go there and why. There are so many other things to talk about regarding eternity, or whatever it is that comes next, but “who goes to heaven and hell?” seems to define and consume everything.

Today, even after 2000+ years of discourse, rigorous study, and heated debate, Christendom is divided. To put it simply, one group believes that Heaven must be earned and hell is therefore deserved. Another claims that Heaven is gained by faith only, i.e., that Jesus died to remove any barriers between people and heaven. But you have to believe that to get it. If you don’t, you spend eternity in the other place.

The last group confesses something similar, but without any conditions, i.e., everyone gets in.

Before we go any further, to make this a little easier if you don’t mind, I’ll refer to the “gotta earn it to get it” group as “Catholic,” the “gotta believe it to get it” group as “Evangelical, and the “already got it” group as “Universalist.”

Each of these considers the others’ views to be heretical. The Catholic, for example, sees great danger in the Evangelical perspective: if we fail to emphasize obedience, the argument goes, everyone will simply do whatever they want. The Evangelical, on the other hand condemns anything that smacks of “everyone goes to heaven,” and the Universalist condemns the Catholic and the Evangelical because their system places conditions on the grace, mercy, and forgiveness of God.

For most of my Christian life, I embraced the Evangelical view. There are many passages in both the Old and New Testaments that speak of Jesus as “redeemer,” “the final sacrifice,” one whose death removed “the sins of the world.” Along with those come many passages about expressing faith and/or trust in this idea, failure to do so might result in eternal punishment. So, for most of my adult Christian life, I’ve had no problem with the “gotta believe it to get it” perspective.

But there’s an episode from my seminary days that won’t leave my head, one that is now toying with my beliefs.

During a class on the New Testament, I was surprised to hear my very Evangelical professor work through a list of Biblical passages that deal with who is “saved” from the wrath of God and who isn’t. Some supported the Catholic idea, some the Evangelical view, and others, Universalism.

At the time, that didn’t displace my Evangelical beliefs, but I think much about that day, and the many passages in scripture that seem to support all three views.

I’m now asking, with much more frequency, who is right?

The best place to start is by asking, why do we give “our” passages authority over the others? If I embrace a “gotta believe it to get it” passage in the book of John, for example, why does that override Paul’s thought in the book of Romans that every human that ever lived/died has been justified by the death of Jesus and is, by definition, worthy of heaven?

Should I interpret Paul’s thought in light of John’s as the Evangelical does, or vice-versa, like a good Universalist?

The answer is complicated. Consider just a tiny smattering of these passages, each one supporting a different view:

Then [Jesus] will say to those on his left [at “judgment day”], “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.” ~ Matthew 25:41-43, “The Sheep and The Goats”

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. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. ~ John 3:16-18

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death came to all people, because all sinned… Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous. ~ Romans 5:12-19

Because there are so many more passages like this, you can understand why the Catholic, Evangelical, and Universalist believe as they do.

Personally, as an Evangelical teetering on the edge of Universalism, I’ll admit that I don’t know what to do with the first passage, where Jesus sends a big bunch of ungenerous people straight to hell. And the second passage sure sounds like “belief” plays a key role in the passage to heaven.

But taking a passage that supports one view and building an entire religion around it, while ignoring the other passages will always be shortsighted. Trying to force the “Sheep and Goats” passage into a “believe it to get it” system, for example, leaves us with the belief that we’re somehow exempt from the world’s myriad issues of poverty and injustice.

On the other hand, how can we possibly reconcile three passages that seem so mutually exclusive?

Is this simply one more example of the Bible contradicting itself, or is it one more aspect of God’s world that us humans can’t fully grasp?

When Jesus came to the Jewish people, he tried his best to explain how things worked. Most condemned his as crazy because he uprooted almost every system they could think of.

Like us, they had it all figured out.

On almost every point, they had gotten it wrong. The only thing they had right was that there was only one God, the Hebrew God, and the scriptures were his “word.” Almost everything else was wrong in Jesus’ opinion, and in need of a complete overhaul.

Is it the same with us and our thoughts about Heaven? If Jesus came to earth – the way he did the first time – and unpacked for us with great detail the inner workings of salvation, would we call him crazy?

Maybe the the reason that the bible seems so all over the place is that there’s something deeper than mere Catholicism, or Evangelicalism, or Universalism.

We’re not done thinking here yet. There’s a mystery that still needs to be explored. But in our need to define things, to claim mastery over God’s universe, we declare that our religion is the right one, then take every bible passage we can get our hands on and try to make it fit.

There’s a big difference between a puzzle that’s been put together by a three-year-old who doesn’t have the patience to figure out how the pieces fit, and one that’s been put together correctly.

The biggest difference is that one is much more complicated than the other, taking much longer to complete.

At the same time, because faith and day-to-day life are always hopelessly intertwined, we have to land the plane, even if it’s in the wrong spot. That doesn’t mean that we have to stop thinking, but we can’t forever live in limbo regarding how we think God thinks about us.

And so I submit to you the place that I’ve landed.

If God is real, he is also just, so we should all be concerned about morality, especially about treating others the way we expect to be treated. But we should be motivated by love, not fear, so removing the threat of hell should be part of our system as well.

To that, I rely on one biblical truth that nobody’s arguing: God expects our forgiveness to contain no conditions whatsoever. If someone who has wronged me refuses to repent, or “own” their mistake, or apologize, I still have to forgive them.

According to Jesus, I’m supposed to forgive even my enemies.

If my forgiveness is to be unconditional, shouldn’t I assume that God’s is as well? How can God’s forgiveness be less perfect than mine?

In Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son, the biggest sinner a first-century Jewish mind can fathom, a son who is utterly unrepentant, receives unmerited grace and forgiveness from his victim.

I rely heavily on this idea. So should you. We have been undonditionally forgiven by God, regardless of whether or not we are repentant – even aware – of the ways that we have wronged God and others.

Along with unconditional forgiveness comes the unconditional grace and favor of God. Not only are we loved, we can be as close to him as we choose to be. We can live a life that more closesly approximates the one we’re hoping to live simply by playing life by his rules. We can feel his presence and all of the hope that comes with it.

According to Jesus, we can enter his world, now.

But the king of that world demands that we care for the poor and marginalized, regardless of who’s fault it is that they’re the poor and marginalized. If you doubt that, commit to memory the “Sheep and Goats” passage (above) and help me understand why those people don’t take precedence.

In short, because I have been reconciled to God, I am free to play by a different set rules, one that is governed by love, mercy, forgiveness, patience, generosity, hope, and peace than any system I’ve operated under. I am also forced to consider the idea that I matter, that the very creator of the universe is not encumbered by my frailties, that he sees the best.

How can I refuse to look at others the same way?

Again, this is little more than my personal take on the tension between heaven and hell, so please take this with a grain of salt while you consider how it might fit into your system.

I have much work to do here and will probably revisit this many times in the coming weeks. For now, I’m sitting on a porch by the beach in Mexico with some good friends who are in the kitchen cooking breakfast for 2 families. I’ll sign off for now, hopefully leaving you a little more open to how God’s world works.