Will God Judge Us Based on Our Deeds or on What We Believe About Jesus?

The Bible says we'll be judged "according to what we have done" (Revelations 20:13). And Jesus said the angels would separate the wicked from the righteous (Matthew 13:49) on the day of judgment. Does that mean we'll be judged based on our deeds rather than on what we believe about Jesus. Universalists want to see all people get into Heaven or, at least, all good people. And most universalists assume all people will suddenly "get it" or become good when they meet God after they die. They don't like the idea that one must know and believe in Jesus prior to death to be saved, because they consider most non-believers to be pretty good people who deserve to get into Heaven and be spared Hell.

However, though Scripture consistently puts emphasis on righteousness vs. wickedness and on good deeds vs. evil deeds (because it's important!), it is also exceedingly clear that salvation comes through no other name under heaven except that of Christ alone (John 3:18, 36, 14:6, Ephesians 2:8-9, Acts 4:12, Romans 3:21-25, 10:9-10). Scripture also makes it clear that rejecting Jesus IS a form of wickedness and, all by itself, is deserving of punishment.

"All this is evidence that God’s judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering. God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you" (II Thessalonians 1:5-10, emphasis added).

You can't have Jesus without JESUS! Although Christ's forgiveness and salvation is equally available to all humanity, there are vast groups of people whose hearts are so hard that they will NEVER turn to Him--regardless of anything He does to convince them of His love and grace (Genesis 6:5-6, Isaiah 42:18-20, Romans 2:5). That doesn't mean He condemned them in advance to Hell. That doesn't mean they didn't have ample opportunities during this life. That doesn't mean He ordained or designed them to be this hardhearted. Rather, God in His great love for us--even "while we were still sinners" (Romans 5:8)--took the penalty of our sin on His own shoulders, suffered and died in our place, spread His Good News to all mankind, and offered us a chance to spend eternity with Him. 

"Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God" (John 3:18). 

"Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him" (John 3:36).

Would a Good God Send People to Hell? (Logic Flow Chart)

A Good God Would/Wouldn't.... (Fill in the Blank)

(As first published at http://relationshipphilosophy.blogspot.com/)

In 1860, Charles Darwin wrote a letter to Asa Gray in which he described one of his motivations for rejecting belief in God. He wrote:

"With respect to the theological view of the question; this is always painful to me.— I am bewildered.— I had no intention to write atheistically. But I own that I cannot see, as plainly as others do, & as I sh^d wish to do, evidence of design & beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent & omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidæ with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice (emphasis added)."

Two years ago, I attended a creation talk (a series of talks, really) given by a Seventh Day Adventist pastor. The research and argumentation was exceedingly well researched and delivered, I thought, and presented a wealth of evidence for the existence and involvement of a good, loving Creator. However, on the last evening of the series, the pastor said this (which I'm paraphrasing as best I can from memory):

"I want to suggest that when people die and go to Hell, that they are not completely destroyed and neither do they stay there, suffering horribly, for an eternity. Now, bear with me as I explain why I think this is: When I read the Bible, I find a God who would do anything to rescue His children--us--even to the point of dying on the cross for us. Furthermore, the Bible says that when we get to heaven, that ever tear will be wiped away. But, could you be happy in heaven if you knew your husband or sister or child was suffering in Hell? No. So, I believe that people who die without knowing Christ go to Hell and suffer for a time, but are then destroyed--burned up, so to speak. People do not suffer for an eternity in Hell. A good God wouldn't let that happen (emphasis added)."
FYI, there was no mention of the many, many passages in the Bible that clearly describe an eternity of suffering in Hell for those that do not accept Jesus Christ's payment for their sin.

But, the maligning of the Word aside, the dangerous thinking I'm pointing to here is revealed whenever we start a sentence with: "A good God would..." or "A good God wouldn't...."

This kind of statement requires that we base our understanding of the world on a complete reversal of our moral position with God's moral position. It sets me up as a judge over God. It implicitly claims that I am of a higher moral ilk than God is, that I have the right to judge His behavior or motivations, and (in a bizarre twist) that the truth of His pronouncements and, indeed, His very existence is dependent on my verdict.

Our first mistake is to conceive of God as a moral Being. No. He's the Standard. He doesn't have to follow the rules, He is the Rule. His very character is the standard. He is completely sovereign. There is no free-floating "morality" that exists independently of Him. And, even if there were, what makes us think we would have access to it?

Our second mistake is to assume we, of our own accord, have anything good to contribute to the conversation. We are irreparably flawed, in and of ourselves. Our insight is limited, our judgment is poor, our behavior atrocious. So, where do we think this nebulous standard of "good" comes from, if not from God? Certainly, it doesn't come from us. And, yet, we presume to put God on trial and set ourselves up as His judge?

Things I've Learned About God

It's amazing to me how much we can learn about God's character, the Bible and life even after growing up in a Christian home and church. That's not to say I didn't have good teachers and role models, only that God can always surprise you. Here are a few things I've learned:

1. God's primary characteristic (contrary to what many think) is not love, but holiness. Look at how many time God is called love in the Bible vs. how many times He is called holy.

2. God does not save us because He loves us. He loves everyone, but He will not save everyone. He saves us only when we allow the death and resurrection of Christ to take the place of the death that is demanded of us as payment for being the property of Satan--making us the property of God. Why does it have to be this way? Again, because He is holy. We are not.

3. Good and evil don't exist in the normal, conceptual way we think of them. That is why atheists (rightly) have trouble accounting for them as 'real'. The only way we can know "good" is to know God--(again, He's holy--He is the standard of goodness). Evil is the antithesis of God--anything that is contrary to God. God--a Being, not a belief or a concept--IS the standard. There is no such thing as a standard for goodness or a measure of evil without accepting that God is who He says He is. It just doesn't make any sense. This is also why asking questions like, "Why does God do evil things?" is nonsensical. Whatever God does is "good"--because He's the standard. He cannot be judged by any other standard aside from Himself. (Certainly not by us.) Good and evil are exclusively relational terms and always find their essence within a relationship or lack of relationship with God.

4. There is no such thing as blind faith. All faith is based on a reason or a set of reasons. (Although, they may not be good reasons.) Just ask someone--even the crazy guy in the asylum who talks to his magic marker--why they believe or act the way they do. They'll have some kind of reason.

5. Satan is evil, but he's not the "embodiment of evil." Evil entered the world through man, not through Satan. Creation was given to us and we promptly handed it over to Satan--practically gift-wrapped it for him. That's why he's called the prince of this world.

6. Angels don't have wings. Seraphim and Cherubim (never called "angels" in the Bible) do have wings. Regular angels don't. These are distinctly different beings created by God.

7. There is no foundation in Scripture for the belief that the fallen angels became the demons.

8. The Bible doesn't ever, not in a single translation I could find, says that in heaven the lion will lie down with the lamb. There is a brief mention of a lamb lying down with a wolf, but not a lion.


Well, that's it for now.