I don't think it's so much that the rules don't apply in every situation as much as the rules aren't what matters in every situation.
In any case, I don't think the solution is cruelty or blaspheming God by ascribing cruelty to Him, but neither should we resort to vagueries which deny that there even is a clear solution to any difficult moral or soteriological problem at all. There are those who will be damned, in the end, by their own will, but it's not little Jewish children like to whom God told the disciples the Kingdom of Heaven belonged.
Perhaps in some ways, the heart of wisdom is knowing when to make exceptions to the letter of the Law in order to uphold the Spirit of the Law. I think such an approach though can only be between individuals and God. I cannot tell you when you need to make exceptions.
One of my favorite Preachers, Alister Begg, came a across such a conundrum when advising a devoted Christian grandmother whose Granddaughter was getting "gay married." His advice to her, as an individual who wanted to keep some semblance of a relationship with her granddaughter to bring her to Christ, was - since the grandaughter knew about the grandmother's full hearted Christian devotion - to go to the "wedding" sit in the front row, and give them a Bible as a wedding gift; escentially subverting prejudice and presuppositions with love.
He received so much backlash after sharing that story - the point being, we can only love people where they are. He later clarified his advice was to one specific individual in a specific circumstance, and he was not broadly proclaiming the acceptance of homosexual marriage/relations to the church.
"When, for instance, someone tells me that the profligate Jew is barred from salvation because he rejects the Christhood of Christ, I immediately imagine some five-year-old Jewish girl gassed to death by Nazi monsters. Will the Lord refuse her at Heaven’s Gate because she did not proclaim him? My imagination simply will not form that image. I do not think it’s so."
One mans opinion freely given and worth ALMOST that much.
A lot of people are going to be surprised when they get to heaven, at Who is there, and Who isn't.
I prefer to leave who gets to heaven to someone MUCH BETTER qualified to make that decision.
My (our) job (its in the Mission statement) is to spread The Good News, as best we can.
I am now at that point where when I read TNJ every morning, each essay touches on some aspect of what I wrestle with. As a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America-who believes the church has strayed far over into leftist politics and, at times wonders if I should remain a member when I disagree with so much of what my church advocates, I read this. Yes, orthodoxy, even doctrine, are important tenets. But how much of them do I need to concern myself with if I am worshiping a loving God through Christ in the liturgy of my church?
It is so fun to try to articulate these ideas. Here is what this sparked for me:
When we immerse ourselves in the Word, We are learning to wield the only offensive weapon in the armor of God. The 2 edged sword - one edge representing the Word (logos - The symbolic manifestation of christ on the earth), And the spirit ( telos- The spiritual manifestation of Christ on the Earth that dwells within our hearts and change us into eternal beings-
For example, Sons of God, quickened and sanctified, among other keywords.)
I'm pretty sure it was Spencer.Who taught me that the word "meek" Means to have a sword but to choose not to Wield it most of the time. There is a difference between discernment and condemnation. Condemning others is no different than when woke people try to be their saviors. It is only His to do.
When I start struggling with questions like your five-year-old Jewish girl, I just remind myself that, in the words of St. Paul, I am to "work out [my] own salvation with fear and trembling" (Philippians 2:12).
Jesus said (lots of paraphrasing) - this is what they said, thou shall not murder. But I say thou shall not hate your brother. Jesus' sayings were even harder to do. He told us the Spirit of the law, the real truth. God's ways and truth are higher and maybe sometimes inconceivable to us. But truth - right and wrong - does exist and it is worth looking for.
For myself, I believe that those to whom The Father, The Son, and the Holy Spirit have been revealed risk eternity without God when they turn away from Him and encourage others to do likewise. Repent, turn back, or be damned. I don’t think that applies to everyone. But I could be wrong.
We are the only creatures that care about truth. Even a dog can have love , peace and joy. But not truth. That is because we are children of the God of Truths and Truth comes fromHim. To grow up to be like our Father don’t you think we have to search ever so carefully and diligently to distinguish between truth and error, between right and wrong? To get closer toHim. Anything less will damage our souls and make us miserable. He will help us if we ask and that is a fine truth to start with. Rejoice in the truth!
You write: “When, for instance, someone tells me that the profligate Jew is barred from salvation because he rejects the Christhood of Christ, I immediately imagine some five-year-old Jewish girl gassed to death by Nazi monsters. Will the Lord refuse her at Heaven’s Gate because she did not proclaim him? My imagination simply will not form that image. I do not think it’s so.”
But what if this Jewish girl had not met an untimely death. Rather, what if she had lived a full life, one grounded in the faith of her fathers—a faith that does not accept Christ as the Messiah. Would she then be denied salvation? Is it possible the Jews are right and the Christians are wrong? Can they both be right? Do the moral codes of each faith differ materially? Are we to be condemned because our religious beliefs are, more often than not, those of our parents?
Consider the following:
“Men see the grandeur of the idea of unity in the means, God in the end. That is why the idea of grandeur leads us into a thousand forms of pettiness. To force all men to march in step toward a single goal—that is a human idea. To introduce endless variety into actions but to combine those actions in such a way that all lead via a thousand diverse paths to the accomplishment of a grand design—that is a divine idea.
“The human idea of unity is almost always sterile; God’s idea is immensely fertile. Men believe that they attest to their grandeur when they simplify the means; but it is God’s purpose that is simple, while his means vary endlessly.”
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. by Arthur Goldhammer, (New York, New York: The Library of America, 2004), p. 868.
No amount of mistaken, false doctrine or ignorance condemns a person when they die.
For little children, their innocent willingness to be led to the truth will show them to their place in heaven. They will be taught by loving angel mothers, and they will grow to become handsome young men and beautiful young women, looking toward a heavenly marriage with one of the opposite sex, chaste and devoted and full of delight.
For us others, it will be our loves that lead us to our place in the next life. We are all defined by our loves, the essential things that matter to us. We will wake up in a world where the Lord gives us every chance to see and love what is true and good.
Some of us will choose to love ourselves more than others, unwilling, and thus unable, to learn about and choose a different way. Others of us, who you might say have been on a long journey following the Star in search of the Child, will find our way leading in another direction, open to learning where we have gone astray, and happy — oh so happy — to be traveling a path into heaven.
I don't think it's so much that the rules don't apply in every situation as much as the rules aren't what matters in every situation.
In any case, I don't think the solution is cruelty or blaspheming God by ascribing cruelty to Him, but neither should we resort to vagueries which deny that there even is a clear solution to any difficult moral or soteriological problem at all. There are those who will be damned, in the end, by their own will, but it's not little Jewish children like to whom God told the disciples the Kingdom of Heaven belonged.
Perhaps in some ways, the heart of wisdom is knowing when to make exceptions to the letter of the Law in order to uphold the Spirit of the Law. I think such an approach though can only be between individuals and God. I cannot tell you when you need to make exceptions.
One of my favorite Preachers, Alister Begg, came a across such a conundrum when advising a devoted Christian grandmother whose Granddaughter was getting "gay married." His advice to her, as an individual who wanted to keep some semblance of a relationship with her granddaughter to bring her to Christ, was - since the grandaughter knew about the grandmother's full hearted Christian devotion - to go to the "wedding" sit in the front row, and give them a Bible as a wedding gift; escentially subverting prejudice and presuppositions with love.
He received so much backlash after sharing that story - the point being, we can only love people where they are. He later clarified his advice was to one specific individual in a specific circumstance, and he was not broadly proclaiming the acceptance of homosexual marriage/relations to the church.
"When, for instance, someone tells me that the profligate Jew is barred from salvation because he rejects the Christhood of Christ, I immediately imagine some five-year-old Jewish girl gassed to death by Nazi monsters. Will the Lord refuse her at Heaven’s Gate because she did not proclaim him? My imagination simply will not form that image. I do not think it’s so."
One mans opinion freely given and worth ALMOST that much.
A lot of people are going to be surprised when they get to heaven, at Who is there, and Who isn't.
I prefer to leave who gets to heaven to someone MUCH BETTER qualified to make that decision.
My (our) job (its in the Mission statement) is to spread The Good News, as best we can.
I am now at that point where when I read TNJ every morning, each essay touches on some aspect of what I wrestle with. As a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America-who believes the church has strayed far over into leftist politics and, at times wonders if I should remain a member when I disagree with so much of what my church advocates, I read this. Yes, orthodoxy, even doctrine, are important tenets. But how much of them do I need to concern myself with if I am worshiping a loving God through Christ in the liturgy of my church?
It is so fun to try to articulate these ideas. Here is what this sparked for me:
When we immerse ourselves in the Word, We are learning to wield the only offensive weapon in the armor of God. The 2 edged sword - one edge representing the Word (logos - The symbolic manifestation of christ on the earth), And the spirit ( telos- The spiritual manifestation of Christ on the Earth that dwells within our hearts and change us into eternal beings-
For example, Sons of God, quickened and sanctified, among other keywords.)
I'm pretty sure it was Spencer.Who taught me that the word "meek" Means to have a sword but to choose not to Wield it most of the time. There is a difference between discernment and condemnation. Condemning others is no different than when woke people try to be their saviors. It is only His to do.
When I start struggling with questions like your five-year-old Jewish girl, I just remind myself that, in the words of St. Paul, I am to "work out [my] own salvation with fear and trembling" (Philippians 2:12).
I go back with Abraham - Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?
This is exactly what I thought. I was going to comment the very same thing. Thank you.
Jesus said (lots of paraphrasing) - this is what they said, thou shall not murder. But I say thou shall not hate your brother. Jesus' sayings were even harder to do. He told us the Spirit of the law, the real truth. God's ways and truth are higher and maybe sometimes inconceivable to us. But truth - right and wrong - does exist and it is worth looking for.
For myself, I believe that those to whom The Father, The Son, and the Holy Spirit have been revealed risk eternity without God when they turn away from Him and encourage others to do likewise. Repent, turn back, or be damned. I don’t think that applies to everyone. But I could be wrong.
We are the only creatures that care about truth. Even a dog can have love , peace and joy. But not truth. That is because we are children of the God of Truths and Truth comes fromHim. To grow up to be like our Father don’t you think we have to search ever so carefully and diligently to distinguish between truth and error, between right and wrong? To get closer toHim. Anything less will damage our souls and make us miserable. He will help us if we ask and that is a fine truth to start with. Rejoice in the truth!
Only God knows. I'm with Andrew Klavan.
You write: “When, for instance, someone tells me that the profligate Jew is barred from salvation because he rejects the Christhood of Christ, I immediately imagine some five-year-old Jewish girl gassed to death by Nazi monsters. Will the Lord refuse her at Heaven’s Gate because she did not proclaim him? My imagination simply will not form that image. I do not think it’s so.”
But what if this Jewish girl had not met an untimely death. Rather, what if she had lived a full life, one grounded in the faith of her fathers—a faith that does not accept Christ as the Messiah. Would she then be denied salvation? Is it possible the Jews are right and the Christians are wrong? Can they both be right? Do the moral codes of each faith differ materially? Are we to be condemned because our religious beliefs are, more often than not, those of our parents?
Consider the following:
“Men see the grandeur of the idea of unity in the means, God in the end. That is why the idea of grandeur leads us into a thousand forms of pettiness. To force all men to march in step toward a single goal—that is a human idea. To introduce endless variety into actions but to combine those actions in such a way that all lead via a thousand diverse paths to the accomplishment of a grand design—that is a divine idea.
“The human idea of unity is almost always sterile; God’s idea is immensely fertile. Men believe that they attest to their grandeur when they simplify the means; but it is God’s purpose that is simple, while his means vary endlessly.”
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. by Arthur Goldhammer, (New York, New York: The Library of America, 2004), p. 868.
God is a merciful God. He knows many people are not being taught the truth, and many are taught things that just are not true.
No amount of mistaken, false doctrine or ignorance condemns a person when they die.
For little children, their innocent willingness to be led to the truth will show them to their place in heaven. They will be taught by loving angel mothers, and they will grow to become handsome young men and beautiful young women, looking toward a heavenly marriage with one of the opposite sex, chaste and devoted and full of delight.
For us others, it will be our loves that lead us to our place in the next life. We are all defined by our loves, the essential things that matter to us. We will wake up in a world where the Lord gives us every chance to see and love what is true and good.
Some of us will choose to love ourselves more than others, unwilling, and thus unable, to learn about and choose a different way. Others of us, who you might say have been on a long journey following the Star in search of the Child, will find our way leading in another direction, open to learning where we have gone astray, and happy — oh so happy — to be traveling a path into heaven.