Why Live a Good Life If All Will Be Saved?
by Charles Slagle
Why live a good life if God plans to save everyone in the end -- no matter what they have done? It’s amazing how often folks ask that question without giving more thought to it before they voice it. My first response to people who pose that question is another question: "Are you saying the only reason you don’t cheat on your spouse, abuse your children, or steal from your neighbors is because you’re afraid of going to hell?"
Hmmm… Awkward question, that one... It usually brings a blush to folks who insist that people need to be threatened with never-ending punishment to give them "incentive" to seek the Lord, to live morally and ethically, and to love their neighbors as they love themselves. Why do those who advocate the dogma of endless hell find my question embarrassing?
It is because they have a conscience, that’s why.
The human conscience knows that right is right, because it is right. So we find it shameful to suggest that the only reason we would do right by others is to avoid being trashed and burned forever. And rightly so! How would you react if your neighbor told you that fear of endless hell was his main "reason," bottom line, for not stealing your wife, or molesting your children, or running over you with his car if you got in his way? Would you look forward to developing an intimate friendship with him?
By no means! You might do your best to treat him kindly. But you would also buy the biggest guard dog you could find to protect your family and property! For you’d not be able to find any "common ground" for relating to such a monster as an "intimate friend." The best you’d be able to do would be to treat your demented neighbor courteously, while also watching your backside. And that, with extreme diligence!
Yet, much of today’s church tells us that God is looking for those kinds of "friends." He’s looking for friends who will follow His Savior-Son in love and righteousness -- because -- their only other option is a never-ending and hopeless hell.
But if the doctrine of eternal punishment is actually what the Bible teaches, let’s get real! We’re talking about eternal destinies here. If that doctrine is true, then it is also true that God loves and values people who perform successfully, but He plans to trash all who do not -- forever! Thus, "God" (!?) has put Himself between the devil and the deep blue sea. Has He not?
For He says He wants His creatures to be his "friends" and to love Him wholeheartedly, with all their soul, mind, and strength. Yet He also (allegedly) warns that He plans to doom to eternal agony all people who fail to "make friends" with him. And--within a certain time limit!
To my mind, that’s hardly a good way to "win friends and influence people"! Or don’t you agree?
Say the president asked you to join him for regular golf games and friendly chitchat and to share mutual heart-aspirations together, as well as to co-labor with him in charitable enterprises. Yet he also told you he would have you burned alive if you missed too many appointments with him. Would you consider that to be a legitimate invitation to friendship? I would not! Coward that I am, I’d be sorely tempted to treat him as an "intimate friend." However, in my heart I would abhor the very thought of him. Any authority figure who so abused his position of power to have "friends" would be incapable of winning my trust, my faith! Let alone my admiration and loyalty! Secretly, I would yearn for the day of his overthrow or impeachment. Wouldn’t you?
That’s why the world is now filled with agnosticism and atheism and theological liberalism, which is mostly agnosticism, thinly veiled in religious semantics. A corrupt and double-tongued version of "Christianity" has held sway for too many centuries. The message has been "God is love/hate." Or in it’s mildest form, the message has been "God loves you, but..." Or the glad (?) tidings has been, "The Lord desires to save everyone!
http://www.tentmaker.org/FAQ/WhyLiveAGoodLife.htmlIsn’t this marvelous?"
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