Heaven: Easy or Hard?

 First, I don’t know your eternal fate. It might be heaven, or it might be hell. I’m not privy to that information.

But the Bible suggests who is saved and who is not. The quote about this that gets all modern attention is Romans 10:13: "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."

And based on that, most American Christians accept that salvation is easy. But it really isn’t. The modern, literal interpretation of this passage suggests that everybody who knows this passage, pious or not, could call on the name of the Lord and enter heaven. So, taken too literally, without knowledge of other scripture, salvation is a knowledge test. But it doesn’t seem that the same thing that gets you into Cal State LA should get you into heaven.

And the Bible says otherwise. Clearly, not everybody will be permitted to call on the name of the Lord. Some people will cry out "Lord, lord . . .", and Jesus will reply, "Get away from me, you evil-doers . . .." (Matthew 7:22-23.) The name of the Lord won’t rise from them; perhaps they won’t be permitted in that time even to know it. Perhaps they’ll be like I was in dreams years ago: I felt under demonic attack, and I tried to cry out to Jesus but could not. (I had a friend who had like dreams.)

The point is, salvation is not as easy as it sounds. There’s more to it.

Another part of the Bible that bears upon salvation is largely overlooked. This is a part in which Jesus preached two tracks: he preached blessings for some, and he preached grief for others. This is Luke 6:20-26, often called "The Sermon on the Plain". Jesus speaks four blessings and four griefs.

There’s a clear pattern in who gets blessings and who doesn’t. This pattern shows how backward is the theology of many American churches.

1. The blessings

Blessed [are] ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God.

Blessed [are] ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled. Blessed [are] ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh.

Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you [from their company], and reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake.

Rejoice in that day, and leap [for joy]: for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for in the same manner did their fathers unto the prophets.

2. The curses.

But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation.

Woe unto you, ye that are full now! for ye shall hunger. Woe [unto you], ye that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep.

Woe [unto you], when all men shall speak well of you! for in the same manner did their fathers to the false prophets

3. Which are you?

Jesus said, "The last shall be first and the first shall be last". (Matthew 20:16.) The Sermon on the Plain accords with that. You’ll likely recognize yourself in one or the other of these blessings and griefs; you’re either one of the first or one of the last. By that, you should be comforted or discomforted.

The odd thing is, I see preachers get it backward. They preach against the lowly, but they flatter the comfortable. A lay preacher might stand outside of the San Bernardino courthouse and harangue the people lining up to go inside about their sinfulness. The people are waiting to go into the courthouse to be brusquely treated (perhaps) by their public defender, after which the judge will hand them their asses. These people need hope, not heaviness.

And in a congregation of well-fed Christians who park their nice SUVs in the capacious parking lot, the pastor assures them of their happy place in heaven.

Who’s right, do you think: these pastors or Jesus?

4. The assurance of salvation.

One reason that modern pastors get this wrong is that they believe the modern assurance of salvation. They believe the born-again theology that holds that you are "born again" the moment you "accept" Jesus, and that after that you have an irrevocable ticket to heaven. The well-fed can wallow in their comfort; their life is a first-class ticket to a happy afterlife.

But the Luke passage, and other parts of the Bible, suggest otherwise.

I once took a course at Fuller Theological Seminary called "Ministry to the Dying and Bereaved." The teacher one day veered into the doctrine of assurance of salvation. He was old, and he looked toward the end of his life. He denied that he had assurance of salvation; he said that he had only a "hope of heaven."

Students challenged him. Certainly, they said, he had assurance? But the teacher replied that no, assurance of salvation was not a Biblical principle, and that it had taken root only recently. He cited an event from early in the 20^th Century when a member of a Presbyterian congregation had self-confidently expressed his happy knowledge of where he would be in the afterlife. The other members of the congregation were so shocked by his hubris that, though he was rich, they ejected him from the congregation.

Years ago, I read Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s "The Cost of Discipleship". Bohnhoeffer was a brave pastor who resisted the Nazis in Germany and paid for his resistance on the gallows.

His audience for "The Cost of Discipleship" was Germans before World War II, and the nub of the book was a denunciation of the doctrine of "cheap grace", easy grace. He called for his audience to know costly grace, hard grace.

Bonhoeffer, of course, contradicted the then-and-now current interpretation of Martin Luther’s theology of by-grace-you-are-saved-and-grace-alone.

I’m not prepared to say that one is right and one is wrong. I am prepared to say that which theology should be expressed to a congregation depends upon the times and the congregation. In Martin Luther’s time, there was a theology of works to get into heaven; and often these works were designed to enrich a bloated church. Luther’s grace teachings were an antidote to this orientation of salvation by works.

But in the time of Bonhoeffer, theology in Germany had degraded to the point where six million Jews could be murdered and his country did not shriek in collective outrage. If grace is cheap, conduct doesn’t matter, and people commit outrages against man and God. That dishonors God. In such times, people need to remember that grace isn’t easy or cheap; it’s costly and hard.

5. Our time.

What of our time? It’s mixed. Some people are really, really comfortable. (Woe to you.) Some people struggle and struggle and dread. (Blessings on you.)

Should you have assurance of salvation? It depends: are you the rich man, or are you the beggar Lazarus?

Remember that story? (Luke 16:19-31.) There was a beggar named Lazarus. He was miserable. The dogs in the street licked his sores. There was also a rich man who did nothing to help Lazarus in his misery. They died. Lazarus reposed in heavenly comfort. The rich man suffered the pains of hell. He pleaded for a few drops of water for his parched tongue, but there was a un-crossible chasm between Lazarus in heaven and the rich man in hell.

The rich find no assurance of salvation in this story. The poor do.

Or look at Revelation 3:17-18. Jesus spoke to the church of Laodicea. He said:

Because you say, "I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing," and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see.

If I found a church called "Poor, Blind & Naked", I might join it. And I would hope that these poor, blind, and naked people would be on their way to being spiritually rich, keen-eyed, and clothed in righteousness.