Reaching safety

[theophilus]

Once three men went on an ocean cruise. One of them was an athlete who was in top physical condition and was a champion swimmer. The second knew how to swim and occasionally exercised but generally didn’t attach much importance to keeping fit. The third was a couch potato who didn’t know how to swim and was too lazy to ever exercise. There were plenty of things they could do on the ship to occupy their time and they became so interested in these activities that they didn’t bother to keep track of where the ship was.

One day when all three of them were on the deck there was an explosion which blew a hole in the hull and the ship suddenly sank. It happened so quickly the men didn’t have a chance to put on life jackets or get into lifeboats. They found themselves floating in the ocean without even any debris which they could grab onto to keep themselves afloat.

The one who couldn’t swim sank right away. The other two began swimming in an effort to reach the safety of land.

Unfortunately they didn’t realize that the nearest land was several hundred miles away. The one who exercized moderately was able to swim for a while but he soon became exhausted and sank. The athlete was able to keep going for a long time and go many miles from the site of the wreck but even he couldn’t make it to land and so he ended up at the bottom of the ocean like the others.

The Bible says,

It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.
Hebrews 9:27 ESV

The fate of these three men shows what will happen to those who are judged. The couch potato represents those who make no attempt whatever to live a good life. The one who exercised moderately is like the vast majority of people who make some attempt to live right but don’t consider it the most important thing in life. The athlete stands for those who devote their lives to doing good and hope to earn a place in heaven by the way they live.

And behold, a lawyer stood up to put Jesus to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”
Luke 10:25-28

This is the standard which we must meet if we want of earn God’s approval. Some people come closer to it than others do but no one fulfills it completely.

But suppose there was another ship present when the first ship sank. The captain of the second ship saw the men in the water and ordered his crew to throw lifelines to them. Then all they had to do was grab hold of the lines and they would be pulled to safety. In this situation it wouldn’t matter to any of them how well they could swim. In fact they wouldn’t be able to both grab the lifeline and try to swim to safety. They must choose to do one or the other.

God knows that none of us can meet his standards by our own efforts but he loves us and so has made a way for us to fulfill his requirements. He sent his Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to save us from our sins. Jesus lived a perfect life and completely fulfilled God’s requirements. He then allowed himself to be crucified so that he could bear the punishment we deserve.

But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way;and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Isaiah 53:5-6 ESV

Anyone who will acknowledge his sins and his inability to meet God’s standard and put his faith in Jesus will have his sins forgiven and will be accepted by God at the final judgment.

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
Romans 10:9-10 ESV

[Corwin111]

Your own words contradict the very verses that you choose to quote from your scripture. Make up your mind.

Will all people who lead a good and honest life of kindness to their fellow man and in service of high ideals (AKA good) be saved or will salvation be reserved only for those who honestly "believe that Jesus is lord" and "repent of their sins", regardless of their character and earthly deeds?

Did the Buddha go to hell but King John - to heaven? How about Gandhi and Rodrigo Borgia?

[Peter]

God knows that none of us can meet his standards by our own efforts but he loves us and so has made a way for us to fulfill his requirements. He sent his Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to save us from our sins. Jesus lived a perfect life and completely fulfilled God’s requirements. He then allowed himself to be crucified so that he could bear the punishment we deserve.

Human sacrifice is sickly immoral in any other culture/religion so why in hell do christians have a blindspot when it comes to their god?!

[theophilus]

Will all people who lead a good and honest life of kindness to their fellow man and in service of high ideals (AKA good) be saved or will salvation be reserved only for those who honestly "believe that Jesus is lord" and "repent of their sins", regardless of their character and earthly deeds?

God allows no sin in Heaven. All of us have sinned so no matter how good we seem to be by earthly standards we fall short of God's requirements. The only way we can reach Heaven is to have our sins removed and only Jesus Christ can do that.

For our sake God made Christ to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
(2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV)

Did the Buddha go to hell but King John - to heaven? How about Gandhi and Rodrigo Borgia?

There is no way to know the fate of these men because we don't know whether or not they trusted in Christ for salvation.

Human sacrifice is sickly immoral in any other culture/religion so why in hell do christians have a blindspot when it comes to their god?!

A human sacrifice can't remove sin unless the person sacrificed has not sins of his own that need to be forgiven. Jesus was the only person who ever met that requirement.

[NoJingoLingo]

I thought Jesus died on the cross to wash away our sins?

[theophilus]

I thought Jesus died on the cross to wash away our sins?

He did. That is why those who put their faith in him will be saved.

[NoJingoLingo]

So he only washed away the sins of believers and the rest can go fuck themselves... Seems suspicious to me since he could have skipped the dying on the cross bit and simply announced that you get to heaven if you believe he's the son of god... I mean, of himself...

[Corwin111]

There is no way to know the fate of these men because we don't know whether or not they trusted in Christ for salvation.

Well the latter of each pair most probably did! But you see, the fact that they did put their trust in Christ to erase their sins does not change the fact that they did live the life they lived... a life of depravity, lust for the acquisition of power at any and all costs and taking overt pleasure in the suffering of others.

If you are indeed saying that under your system such men are welcomed into heaven then sorry but your god's an asshole!

Yours is a game of reward and penalty of unimaginable scale... only the game is rigged so every player is "judged" to be unworthy of the reward by default so the reward can NEVER be attained by actually being good at the game, no... the only way to win at your game is to honestly believe that the referee would let you cheat! It is all astoundingly idiotic.

People's obliviousness to the obvious where their own "beliefs" are concerned is a truly amazing thing! :)

[barts]

Just sayin' but what you've told is a story that you (or someone) created to "prove" a point. It seems to me anyone can make up stories to justify almost anything. I'm not sure that it is a good idea to put too much faith in a story, not when your life depends on it.

At any rate, there's much merit, I think, in living a good life. I know that belief in Jesus is not necessary to do that.

It's troubling to me that God and Jesus reject people who live good lives just because they don't believe in them. A bad Christian can be saved, and good atheist or Hindu can't. Very mean spirited it seems, and I can't imagine what the reason for it might be.

[Peter]

A human sacrifice can't remove sin unless the person sacrificed has not sins of his own that need to be forgiven. Jesus was the only person who ever met that requirement.

OK, so apparently your argument is that it's not sickly immoral if it actually works and we know the human sacrifice of jesus works because the bible says so. Can you think for yourself on this issue?

[barts]

OK, so apparently your argument is that it's not sickly immoral if it actually works and we know the human sacrifice of jesus works because the bible says so. Can you think for yourself on this issue?

The crucifixion of Jesus of Christ was hardly a human sacrifice. If I recall, Jesus was convicted of crimes and executed according to the law at that time. Something Americans do quite frequently. Moreover, a few days later Jesus was resurrected. Try that in Texas. At any rate, the fact is Jesus did not, in fact, die, for our sins or for any other reason. He didn't die at all.

[Corwin111]

All in all if what Theophilus is reporting turns out to be correct, I do think that hell would be the sweeter deal. Apparently heaven will be full of humanity's cowards, it's people incapable of independent thought and its egocentric psychopaths who used their get out of hell free card and got "saved".

I choose hell of my own accord. I may be getting my ass flambeed for eternity but at least I will have the good part of humanity around to keep me company. Sure there'll be psychopaths around too... but at least they'll be the ones with the balls to accept the consequences for their actions!