Do you think you’re going to heaven?
What would you say to God if he asks why he should let you in?
These are two common questions pastors and evangelists use to gauge whether the person they’re talking to has a firm understanding of the gospel. About 48 percent of American adults and a shocking 52 percent of American Christians including mainline Protestants and Evangelicals, would respond, “Well, I hope I’m going to heaven because I’ve tried hard to be a good person.” Another possible response is, “I believe in a God of love. He would never send anyone to hell just for believing the wrong thing.”
The idea behind both answers is that people think they deserve heaven regardless of how good they actually are. They think their efforts and intentions alone are worthy of reward. Recently I saw a video skit in which a man asked God to remove all of the evil from the world. He disappeared immediately after his request. When we look at the state of world not just today, but throughout history, it’s hard to deny that we humans aren’t as good as we think we are. From road rage to Twitter arguments, every instance of the sins we so casually commit only support what David wrote in Psalm 53:3: “Everyone has turned away, all have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.”
God’s law lifts the standard even higher when it reveals that “without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6). Even if someone dedicated his or her entire life to helping the poor, performed random acts of kindness, and tried to obey God’s commands perfectly, none of those good deeds would matter if he or she had no faith in God himself. Denying God’s existence or worshiping a false god breaks the very first of God’s commandments: “You shall have no other gods” (Exodus 20:3).
If no one is good, but they’re all trying their hardest, isn’t that good enough? Ask the mother who lost her child to a drunk driver or the elderly man who lost his retirement savings to scammers or the students in therapy because of constant bullying. If God were to simply excuse sin, he wouldn’t deal with any of these situations. Cries for justice and peace would forever remain unheard in the name of a love that isn’t really love at all. Among the list of traits that godly love has, one of them is that it does not delight in evil and that it always protects (1 Corinthians 13:4-7). If God ignored sinful thoughts, words, and actions, he wouldn’t be loving at all. Ultimately, hell is a fitting punishment for sin. When we try to reject the concept of hell, it isn’t because hell is too big; it’s because our concept of sin is too small. The sin itself may be temporal, but it’s against an eternal God and his image-bearers.
Instead of leaving us in despair, God offers a much better option. Sin might be too big for us to remove, but it’s never too big for God. Rather than simply excuse sin, God pays it all on our behalf. So he both deals with the consequences of sin while also showing genuine mercy. In response to evil, he promises that all of it will face righteous judgment in hell. In response to our danger of going there because of our own evil, he sent us a Savior to take the punishment we so rightly deserve. What a much better deal than being completely wiped from the face of the earth!
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Written by Erika Sims, edited by Ray Schumacher