As I have listened to or debated atheists in the past about the fact that God is (was and always will be) one thing became clear. Their objection wasn’t so much about evidence or understanding how one could come to know truth but philosophical and emotional. “How could a loving God send anyone to hell?” is a common complaint.
As I wrote in my last writing, “A state of being”, hell is not so much a place, but a state of being, as is heaven. In multiple places I pointed out that scripture describes out God as a consuming fire. God is not sending you to hell, you are creating that hell yourself through your actions in the present. You are weaving the garment that you will wear in eternity by those actions. So what gives Christians, admitted sinners, a free pass? Only Jesus.
The fifth seal in Revelation 6:9-11 says, “When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers and sisters, were killed just as they had been.” The robes must be given, they cannot be earned, but their faith, like Abraham’s, is credited to them as righteousness.
Later in Revelation 19:8 the apostle writes, “Fine linen, bright and clean,
was given her to wear.”
(Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of God’s holy people.)” Acts driven by the fruits of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self control. Against such things there is no law. Galatians 5. Each of the listed things are states of being, not acts. But the things that separate us from God are our actions, actions that derive from our sinful desires.
So one might ask, “So if I do good things, I should be alright apart from believing in God and the sacrifice and resurrection of His Son, shouldn’t I?” The problem is that since you have rejected God’s standard of good, you only have your own opinion of what is good. And for even the best among us, that’s not enough. How can I show faithfulness when I am unfaithful to my Creator?
The parable of the wedding banquet in Matthew 22 starting in verse eight, Jesus says, ““Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.
“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend ?’ The man was speechless.
“Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
“For many are invited, but few are chosen.”
You certainly wouldn’t want to show up to your daughter’s wedding in soiled clothes or worse yet naked. How much worse to stand before a holy God in such a state. The invitations have been sent out. You might want to consider what you will be wearing.
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