Who Goes to Heaven?
Illustration
Stories
Indeed, God did not send the son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him. (v. 17)
Who or what determines who goes to heaven and who goes the other direction?
C.S. Lewis, in his book, The Great Divorce, suggests that it is really up to us.
He describes hell as a city populated with people convinced of their own righteousness and sufficiency. He imagines a bus traveling from hell to heaven each day. Those in hell are always welcome to visit heaven. They are met by saints who try to encourage them to stay. Most quickly board the bus for the return trip to hell.
The first to return to the bus is a man convinced there must be some mistake. He's met in heaven by one of his former employees who was convicted of murder. Terribly offended he says, "What I would like to understand is what you are here for, as pleased as punch, you, a bloody murderer, while I've been walking the streets down there and living like a pig in a pigsty all these years."
The saint who was once a murderer freely admits his sin and tries to explain God's grace, but the man from hell will have nothing of it. He is convinced a great injustice has been done. He complains, "I'd rather be damned than go along with you. I came to get my rights, see? Not to go sniveling along on charity tied to your apron strings. If they would rather have you instead of me I'll go home." He gets back on the bus.
This story suggests something that many of us find difficult to believe. It is not God who decides who will go to heaven and who will not. Separation from God is something that is our choice. It is a decision we make of our own free will. We decide whether we will accept the grace that Jesus offers, the grace that restores our relationship with God, or to stay in the condition of separation caused by sin.
Lewis explains it this way, “It’s not a question of God ‘sending’ us to hell. In each of us there is something growing up which will of itself be hell unless it is nipped in the bud.”
In his best-selling book, The Shack, William Paul Young gives an example of this kind of thinking. Mack, the main character, asks God in one of their conversations, "...why do you love me when I have nothing to offer you? God tries to explain to him that he just loves us, that he is incapable of anything else; "The God who is — the I am who I am — cannot act apart from love."
God really is like the loving father in Jesus' story of The Prodigal Son, always waiting for us to come to our senses and come home. Coming home is our choice, a decision we have to make.
If that is true and I believe that it is the very essence of the gospel, there is no one that God would exclude from heaven including those who hate us and those we hate.
The Roman Catholic theologian, Richard Rhor, writes “A number of church fathers during the first four centuries of Christianity believed in what’s called apokatastasis, or “universal restoration” (Acts 3:21). They believed that the real meaning of Christ’s resurrection was that God’s love was so perfect and so victorious that it would finally triumph in every single person’s life. They were so sure about this that their thought partially gave rise to the idea of purgatory as a place. In the dying process or even after death, God’s infinite love can and will still get at us! They felt no soul could resist the revelation of such infinite love.”
Who or what determines who goes to heaven and who goes the other direction?
C.S. Lewis, in his book, The Great Divorce, suggests that it is really up to us.
He describes hell as a city populated with people convinced of their own righteousness and sufficiency. He imagines a bus traveling from hell to heaven each day. Those in hell are always welcome to visit heaven. They are met by saints who try to encourage them to stay. Most quickly board the bus for the return trip to hell.
The first to return to the bus is a man convinced there must be some mistake. He's met in heaven by one of his former employees who was convicted of murder. Terribly offended he says, "What I would like to understand is what you are here for, as pleased as punch, you, a bloody murderer, while I've been walking the streets down there and living like a pig in a pigsty all these years."
The saint who was once a murderer freely admits his sin and tries to explain God's grace, but the man from hell will have nothing of it. He is convinced a great injustice has been done. He complains, "I'd rather be damned than go along with you. I came to get my rights, see? Not to go sniveling along on charity tied to your apron strings. If they would rather have you instead of me I'll go home." He gets back on the bus.
This story suggests something that many of us find difficult to believe. It is not God who decides who will go to heaven and who will not. Separation from God is something that is our choice. It is a decision we make of our own free will. We decide whether we will accept the grace that Jesus offers, the grace that restores our relationship with God, or to stay in the condition of separation caused by sin.
Lewis explains it this way, “It’s not a question of God ‘sending’ us to hell. In each of us there is something growing up which will of itself be hell unless it is nipped in the bud.”
In his best-selling book, The Shack, William Paul Young gives an example of this kind of thinking. Mack, the main character, asks God in one of their conversations, "...why do you love me when I have nothing to offer you? God tries to explain to him that he just loves us, that he is incapable of anything else; "The God who is — the I am who I am — cannot act apart from love."
God really is like the loving father in Jesus' story of The Prodigal Son, always waiting for us to come to our senses and come home. Coming home is our choice, a decision we have to make.
If that is true and I believe that it is the very essence of the gospel, there is no one that God would exclude from heaven including those who hate us and those we hate.
The Roman Catholic theologian, Richard Rhor, writes “A number of church fathers during the first four centuries of Christianity believed in what’s called apokatastasis, or “universal restoration” (Acts 3:21). They believed that the real meaning of Christ’s resurrection was that God’s love was so perfect and so victorious that it would finally triumph in every single person’s life. They were so sure about this that their thought partially gave rise to the idea of purgatory as a place. In the dying process or even after death, God’s infinite love can and will still get at us! They felt no soul could resist the revelation of such infinite love.”
