Mercy for all

When on the day of mourning, on 14. On September 2001th, , people gathered in churches across America and other countries came to hear words of comfort, encouragement, and hope. However, a number of conservative Christian church leaders - contrary to their intent to bring hope to the grieving nation - inadvertently spread a message that fueled despair, discouragement and fear. Namely for people who had lost loved ones in the attack, relatives or friends who had not yet professed Christ. Many fundamentalist and evangelical Christians are convinced: Whoever dies without having confessed to Jesus Christ, even if only because he has never heard of Christ in his life, will go to hell after death and suffer indescribable torments there - by the hand of the God whom the same Christians ironically mouth as the God of love, grace and mercy. Some of us Christians seem to say "God loves you", but then comes the fine print: "If you do not say a fundamental repentance prayer before death, my merciful Lord and Savior will torture you for all eternity."

Good news

The gospel of Jesus Christ is good news (Greek euangélion = good news, salvation message), with the emphasis on “good”. It is and remains the happiest of all messages, for absolutely everyone. Not only is it good news for the few who made the acquaintance of Christ before death; it is good news for all of creation - all human beings without exception, including those who died without ever hearing of Christ.

Jesus Christ is the atonement sacrifice not only for the sins of Christians but for those of the whole world (1. John 2,2). The Creator is also the Reconciler of his creation (Colossians 1,15-20). Whether people get to know this truth before their death does not depend on its truth content. It depends on Jesus Christ alone, not on human action or any human reaction.

Jesus says, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3,16, all quotations from the revised Luther translation, standard edition). It is God who loved the world, and God who gave his Son; and he gave it to redeem what he loved - the world. Whoever believes in the Son whom God has sent will enter into eternal life (better: "to the life of the age to come").

Not a syllable is written here that this belief must come before physical death. No: the verse says that believers "shall not perish," and since even believers die, it should be obvious that "perish" and "die" are not one and the same. Faith prevents people from being lost, but not from dying. The perishing Jesus speaks of here, translated from the Greek appolumi, denotes a spiritual death, not a physical one. It has to do with final annihilation, extermination, disappearance without a trace. Anyone who believes in Jesus will not find such an irrevocable end, but will enter into the life (soe) of the age to come (aion).

Some will die in their lifetime, as earthwalkers, to life in the age to come, to life in the kingdom. But they represent only a small minority of the "world" (kosmos) that God so loved that he sent his Son to save them. What about the rest? This verse is not saying that God cannot or will not save those who physically die without having believed.

The thought that physical death will once and for all prevent God from saving someone or making someone believe in Jesus Christ is a human interpretation; there is nothing like that in the Bible. Rather, we are told: man dies, and after that comes judgment (Hebrews 9,27). The judge, we always want to remember, will thank God be none other than Jesus, the slaughtered Lamb of God who died for the sins of man. That changes everything.

Creator and reconciler

Where does the idea come from that God can only save the living, not the dead? He got over death, didn't he? He rose from the dead, wasn't he? God doesn't hate the world; he loves her. He did not create man for hell. Christ came in time to save the world, not to judge it (John 3,17).

On September 16, the Sunday after the attacks, a Christian teacher said in front of his Sunday school class: God is just as perfect in hatred as in love, which explains why there is a hell as well as heaven. The dualism (the idea that good and bad are two equally strong opposing forces in the universe) is a heresy. Has he not noticed that he is shifting the dualism into God, that he is postulating a God who carries and embodies the tension of perfect hatred - perfect love?

God is absolutely righteous, and all sinners are judged and condemned, but the gospel, the good news, initiates us into the mystery that God in Christ took this sin and this judgment upon himself on our behalf! Indeed, hell is real and terrible. But it is precisely this terrible hell reserved for the wicked that Jesus suffered on behalf of humanity (2. Corinthians 5,21; Matthew 27,46; Galatians 3,13).

All people have incurred the penalty of sin (Romans 6,23), but God gives us eternal life in Christ (same verse). That's why it's called grace. In the preceding chapter, Paul puts it this way: “But the gift is not like sin. For if by the sin of the one the many died ['the many', that is, all, everyone; there is none but Adam's iniquity], how much more was God's grace and gift abounding to the many [again: all, absolutely everyone] through the grace of the one man Jesus Christ" (Romans 5,15).

Paul says: As severe as our sin punishment is, and it is very severe (the verdict is hell), it still takes a back seat to grace and the gift of grace in Christ. In other words, God's word of atonement in Christ is incomparably louder than His word of condemnation in Adam—one is completely drowned out by the other ("how much more"). That is why Paul can 2. Corinthians 5,19 say: In Christ “[God] reconciled the world [everyone, the 'many' from Romans 5,15] with himself and no longer imputed their sins to them ..."

Returning to the friends and family of those who have died without professing faith in Christ, does the gospel offer them any hope, any encouragement as to the fate of their dearly departed? Indeed, in the Gospel of John, Jesus says verbatim: "And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw everyone to myself" (John 12,32). That is good news, the truth of the gospel. Jesus did not set out a timetable, but he did declare that he wanted to attract everyone, not just a few who managed to get to know him before their death, but absolutely everyone.

No wonder Paul wrote to the Christians in the city of Colossae that it was "pleasing" to God, mind you: "pleasing" that through Christ he "reconciled everything to himself, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace through his blood on the cross” (Colossians 1,20). That's good news. And, as Jesus says, it is good news for the whole world, not just a limited number of the elect.

Paul wants his readers to know that this Jesus, this Son of God raised from the dead, is not just an interesting new religious founder with a few new theological thoughts. Paul tells them that Jesus is none other than the Creator and Sustainer of all things (verses 16-17), and more than that, that He is God's way of redressing absolutely everything that has been in the world since the beginning of history went astray (verse 20)! In Christ - says Paul - God takes the ultimate step to make all promises made to Israel come true - promises that one day he will forgive all sins, comprehensively and universally, and make everything new in a pure act of grace (see Acts 13,32-33; 3,20-21; Isaiah 43,19; Rev 21,5; Romans 8,19-21).

Only the Christian

“But salvation is intended only for Christians,” howl the fundamentalists. Certainly that is true. But who are “the Christians”? Is it just those who parrot a standard repentance and conversion prayer? Is it only those baptized by immersion? Is it only those who belong to the "true church"? Only those who attain absolution through a duly ordained priest? Only those who have stopped sinning? (Did you make it? I didn't.) Only those who come to know Jesus before they die? Or does Jesus himself—in whose nail-pierced hands God placed judgment—ultimately make the decision as to who belongs to those whom he shows grace? And once he is there: Does he, who has overcome death and who can give eternal life as a gift to whomever he wants, decide when he makes someone believe, or do we meet, the all-wise defenders of the true religion , this decision in his stead?
Every Christian has at some point become a Christian, that is, has been brought to faith by the Holy Spirit. However, the fundamentalist position seems to be that it is impossible for God to make a person believe after his death. But wait - Jesus is the one who raises the dead. And he is the one who is the atonement sacrifice, not only for our sins but for those of the whole world (1. John 2,2).

Great gap

"But the parable of Lazarus," some will object. "Did not Abraham say that between his side and the rich man's side was a great gulf that could not be bridged?" (See Luke 16,19-31.)

Jesus did not want this parable to be understood as a photographic description of life after death. How many Christians would describe heaven as "Abraham's bosom," a place where Jesus is nowhere to be seen? The parable is a message to the privileged class of first-century Judaism, not a portrait of life after the resurrection. Before we read out more than Jesus put in, let's compare what Paul said in Romans 11,32 schreibt.

The rich man in the parable is still unrepentant. He still sees himself as superior in rank and class to Lazarus. He still sees in Lazarus only someone who is there to serve him. Perhaps it is reasonable to assume that it was the rich man's continued unbelief that made the chasm so unbridgeable, not some arbitrary cosmic necessity. Let us remember: Jesus himself, and only he, closes the otherwise unbridgeable gulf from our sinful condition to reconciliation with God. Jesus underlines this point, this statement of the parable – that salvation comes only through faith in him – when he says: “If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead”. (Luke 16,31).

God's purpose is to lead people to salvation, not to torture them. Jesus is a Reconciler, and believe it or not, he does an excellent job. He is the Savior of the world (John 3,17), not the savior of a fraction of the world. "For God so loved the world" (verse 16) - and not just one man in a thousand. God has ways, and his ways are higher than our ways.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, "Love your enemies" (Matthew 5,43). It is safe to assume that he loved his enemies. Or should one believe that Jesus hates his enemies but demands that we love them, and that his hatred explains the existence of hell? That would be extremely absurd. Jesus calls us to love our enemies because he also possesses them. “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they are doing!” was his intercession for those who crucified him (Luke 23,34).

Certainly, those who reject Jesus' grace even after knowing it will end up reaping the fruits of their stupidity. For people who refuse to come to the Lamb's Supper, there is no other place than utter darkness (one of the figurative expressions Jesus used to describe the state of alienation from God, who is far from God; see Matthew 22,13; 25,30).

Mercy for all

In Romans (11,32) Paul makes the astonishing statement: "For God hath included all in disobedience, that he might have mercy on all." In fact, the original Greek word means all, not some, but all. All are sinners, and in Christ all are shown mercy—whether they like it or not; whether they accept it or not; whether they know it before they die or not.

What more can be said of this revelation than what Paul says in the next verses: “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are his judgments and inscrutable his ways! For 'who has known the mind of the Lord, or who was his counselor?' Or 'who gave him something before that God should reward him?' For from him and through him and to him are all things. Glory be to him forever! Amen” (verses 33-36).

Yes, so unfathomable are his ways that many of us Christians simply can not believe that the gospel can be so good. And some of us seem to know God's thought so well that we just know that anyone who is not a Christian at death is going straight to hell. Paul, on the other hand, wants to make it clear that the indescribable extent of divine grace is simply unfathomable to us - a mystery that only reveals itself in Christ: in Christ, God has done something that transcends the human horizon of knowledge.

In his letter to the Christians at Ephesus, Paul tells us that God intended this from the beginning (Ephesians 1,9-10). It was the underlying reason for the calling of Abraham, for the election of Israel and David, for the covenants (3,5-6). God also saves the "foreigners" and non-Israelites (2,12). He even saves the wicked (Romans 5,6). He literally draws everyone to him (John 12,32). Throughout world history, God's Son has been at work "in the background" from the beginning, doing His work of redemption of reconciling all things with God (Colossians 1,15-20). God's grace has its own logic, a logic that often seems illogical to religiously minded people.

The only way to salvation

In short: Jesus is the only way to salvation, and he draws absolutely everyone to him - in his own way, in his own time. It would be helpful to clarify the fact, which the human intellect actually cannot grasp: one cannot be anywhere in the universe but in Christ, because, as Paul says, there is nothing that was not created by him and does not exist in him (Colossians 1,15-17). The people who ultimately reject him do so in spite of his love; not Jesus rejects them (he does not - he loves them, died for them and forgave them), but they reject him.

CS Lewis put it this way: “In the end there are only two kinds of people: those who say to God 'Thy will be done' and those to whom God says 'Thy will be done' at the end. Those who are in hell have chosen this fate for themselves. Without this self-determination there could be no hell. No soul that sincerely and consistently seeks joy will fail. He who searches will find. To him that knocks it shall be opened” (The Great Divorce, chapter 9). (1)

Heroes in hell?

When I told Christians about the meaning of 11. When I heard the preaching on September th, I remembered the heroic firefighters and police officers who sacrificed their lives trying to save people from the burning World Trade Center. How does this agree: that Christians call these saviors heroes and applaud their courage to sacrifice, but on the other hand declare that if they did not confess to Christ before their death, they will now be tormented in hell?

The gospel declares that there is hope for all who died in the World Trade Center without first professing Christ. The risen Lord is the one they will meet after death, and he is the judge - he, with the nail holes in his hands - eternally ready to embrace and receive all of his creatures who come to him. He forgave them before they were even born (Ephesians 1,4; Romans 5,6 and 10). That part is done, also for us who believe now. Those who stand before Jesus now only have to lay their crowns in front of the throne and accept his gift. Some may not do it. Perhaps they are so ingrained in self-love and hatred of others that they will see the risen Lord as their archenemy. It is more than a shame, it is a catastrophe of cosmic proportions because he is not your archenemy. Because he loves her, anyway. Because he wants to gather her in his arms like a hen her chicks, if they only let him.

But we are allowed - if we have Romans 14,11 and Philippians 2,10 believe - assume that the vast majority of the people who died in that terrorist attack will happily rush into Jesus 'arms like children into their parents' arms.

Jesus saves

“Jesus saves,” Christians write on their posters and stickers. Is correct. He does it. And he is the beginner and perfecter of salvation, he is the origin and goal of everything created, of all creatures, including the dead. God did not send his Son into the world to judge the world, says Jesus. He sent him to save the world (John 3,16-17).

Regardless of what some might say, God wants to save all people without exception (1. Timothy 2,4; 2. Petrus 3,9), not just a few. And what else you need to know - he never gives up. He never stops loving. He never ceases to be what he was, is and always will be for people - their maker and reconciler. Nobody falls through the mesh. Nobody was made to go to Hell. Should someone go to hell - in the small, meaningless, dark nowhere corner of the realm of eternity - it is only because he stubbornly refuses to accept the grace that God has in store for him. And not because God hates him (he doesn't). Not because God is vengeful (He is not). But because he 1) hates the kingdom of God and turns down his grace, and 2) because God does not want him to spoil the joy of others.

Positive message

The gospel is a message of hope for absolutely everyone. Christian ministers do not have to use threats of hell to force people to convert to Christ. You can just tell the truth, the good news: "God loves you. He's not mad at you. Jesus died for you because you are a sinner, and God loves you so much that he saved you from all that is destroying you. Then why do you want to go on living like there is nothing but the dangerous, cruel, unpredictable and unforgiving world that you have? Why don't you come and start experiencing God's love and tasting the blessings of His kingdom? You already belong to him. He has already served your sin penalty. He will turn your sorrow into joy. He will give you inner peace like you have never known. He will bring meaning and direction to your life. He will help you improve your relationships. He will give you rest. trust him He is waiting for you."

The message is so good that it literally gushes out of us. In Romans 5,10Paul writes: "For if while we were still enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, how much more shall we be saved through his life now that we have been reconciled." Not only that, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received atonement.”

The ultimate of hope! The ultimate of grace! Through Christ's death, God reconciles his enemies and saves them by Christ's life. No wonder we can boast of God through our Lord Jesus Christ - through Him we already participate in what we tell other people. They do not have to go on living as if they have no place on God's table; he has already reconciled them, they can go home, they can go home.

Christ saves sinners. That's really good news. The best that can ever be heard by man.

by J. Michael Feazell

Mercy for all